BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



PRE-GLACIAL MAN and the ARYAN RACE $1.50 

ARYAS, SEMITES AND JEWS, 

JEHOVAH AND THE CHRIST $1.50 



LEE AND 8HEPARD PUBLISHERS BOSTON 



ORIGIN AND FORMATION OF THE 

HEBREW SCRIPTURES 



RECITING WHEN, WHERE, UNDER WHAT 

CIRCUMSTANCES, FOR WHAT PURPOSE AND BY 
WHOM THEY WERE WRITTEN, AS OBTAINED 
FROM THE WRITINGS OF THAT EMINENT PERSIAN 
NOBLEMAN AND HISTORIAN NEHEMIAH WHO 
WAS APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF PALESTINE 
B.C. 445. . . . WITH AN APPENDIX CONTAINING 
PROPHECY SUSTAINED IN THE HISTORIES OF 
EGYPT, ASSYRIA AND BABYLON; AND A REVIEW 
OF RADICAL VIEWS OF THE BIBLE 



By LORENZO BURGE 

AUTHOR OF " PRE-GLACIAL MAN AND THE ARYAN RACE " AND " ARYAS, 
SEMITES AND JEWS : JEHOVAH AND THE CHRIST " 



/ vi 



^^"^^ 



( DEC 9 1889,/V 



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PUBLISHED A.D. MDCCCXC 



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Copyright, 1889, 

BY 

LORENZO BURGE. 



PREFACE. 



The Hebrew Scriptures are composed of all the 
books of the Old Testament except the Psalms, 
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. This 
collection was known to the Jews as the " Law and 
the Prophets," and is the foundation of our Bible. 

Believers in the old theology claim that this collec- 
tion, relating events thousands of years apart, was 
written by men especially inspired by the Deity for 
the work ; that these men were mere instruments in his 
hands to record his will ; and the verbal inspiration 
of the Bible as a whole is insisted on, and all unbe- 
lievers in this doctrine are by them denounced as 
infidels. 

Later writers have taken an opposite position ; they 
scout the idea of inspiration, deny the unity of the 
Bible, and proclaim it to be a manufacture from be- 
ginning to end, its writers having for personal ends 
formed from old legends and sun myths the remarka- 
ble history of the Hebrews recorded in the Old Tes- 
tament, while the writers of the Kew Testament 
books were led by personal hate and spite to falsify 

7 



8 PREFACE. 

the traditions of Jesus of Nazaretli, called the Christ, 
and present to the world this false though wonderful 
record of his life and acts. These two extreme views 
are examined in the index. 

Any person of common ability, desirous of ascer- 
taining the authorship of the Hebrew Scriptures or 
the Old Testament, will notice that, with slight excep- 
tions, it is written in the third person ; that, like any 
other history, the author relates in his own words the 
events which happened at certain previous periods of 
time, and he quotes freely incidents and conversations 
verbatim. In the Mosaic history, he introduces his quo- 
tations with, " thus saith the Lord," " then answered 
Moses," " Moses said unto the people," etc. The whole 
tenor of the writing shows that Moses could not have 
written four of the books of the " Pentateuch," but 
that some other person did write it. The fifth book, 
Deuteronomy, is from the pen of Moses, translated by 
the author, verhatim, with a few notes and necessary 
explanations. The author, like Bancroft or any other 
historian, used the authorities at his command, mak- 
ing comments and explanations as he proceeded. 

It is strange that, with all the critical examinations 
of the Scriptures made by German scholars, the 
peculiarities of the writer of the "Law and the 
Prophets " should not have been noticed. More 
especially as, when once pointed out, they are so 
pronounced as to be readily observed by the most 



PREFACE, 9 

careless reader. They run through the Old Testa- 
ment to, and include, Nehemiah, also in portions of 
Isaiah and Jeremiah ; and the same author writes the 
introductory passages of each of the other prophets. 

In ancient times, books were written on skins of 
animals prepared for the purpose, attached together, 
and made into one continuous roll, as large as could 
be conveniently handled, or the roll was confined to 
one subject. When finished, the subject treated upon 
was marked on the roll. There were no punctuation 
or quotation marks, no chapter or verse. There were 
no separate pages, consequently no notes at the foot 
of the page, as is now done. All notes, comments, 
references, or explanations were made in the body of 
the writing. 

In the Old Testament, the subject treated on was 
marked on the outside of the roll ; and we have a 
roll marked Genesis, meaning the beginnings of things. 
The exode of the Hebrews is marked Exodus ; the 
Levitical laws are recorded in the roll marked 
Leviticus ; and the condition and numbering of the 
Israelites is in the roll marked Numbers, and so on. 
All the books of the Old Testament received their 
title from the principal subjects mentioned in the 
book or roll. 

In this book we have given a slight sketch of the 
contents of each book or roll, with the purpose of 
calling the reader's attention to the main object of 



10 PREFACE, 

the author in writing or translating the work, which 
was to enforce on the notice of the new nation of 
Jews the lessons of faith in, and dependence on, Je- 
hovah, their tutelary god. In the history, he con- 
stantly brings forward the fact that, when the 
Hebrews were loyal to their God, they were blessed 
with peace, prosperity, and length of days, and when- 
ever they turned from their allegiance, and worshipped 
other gods, they were punished by wars, pestilence, 
famine, captivity. 



PERSONAL. 



While I have been cliarged by critics who sustain 
the mediaeval doctrines of the dark ages, with falsify- 
ing the Bible in my first book/ I have been censured 
by liberal Christian critics for ignoring, in my second 
volume,^ the results of modern Biblical criticism, and 
for sustaining the truth of the Scriptures and the 
fact of and the necessity of miracles. 

In answer to the charges of the first-named critics, 
I assert that, instead of falsifying the Bible, I have 
increased and enlarged it. 

In that volume I revealed, hidden in the allegory 
in G-enesis, a record of the evolution of, and the 
changes in the configuration of, the earth, and the 
creation of life, the laws governing the advance and 
retreat of the glacial period, and their eifect in for- 
cing man to " replenish the earth," during a period of 
thirty thousand years, with a history of the intellect- 
ual, moral, and spiritual advance of the Aryas for a 
period of ten thousand years, and their final deca- 

1 Pre-glacial Man and the Aryan Race. 

2 Aryas, Semites and Jews. 

11 



12 PERSONAL. 

dence and fall, — the only history of that period yet 
known to man. 

In answer to the second-named critics, I ignored 
the (so-called) scientific criticism of the Bible because 
I did not believe in it ; and the present volume will 
show why I did not accept it. 

In this volume will be found a history of the origin 
and formation of the Hebrew Scriptures, taken wholly 
from its pages, yet, until now, unknown. In this and 
the previous volumes, I have enlarged, not falsified, 
the Bible ; I have sustained the fact and necessity of 
miracles, and in the present volume have proved the 
truths of prophecy by showing their strict fulfilment 
after hundreds of years had passed, or their continued 
life and action unto the present day. 

Lorenzo Burge. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

THE LAW 15 

BOOK OF BEGIISr^INGS 22 

ORIGIN OF THE HEBREW RACE AKD NATION^ 24 

Genesis 24 

Exodus 25 

Leviticus . 26 

Numbers 26 

Deuteeonomy 27 

Joshua 27 

Judges 28 

Ruth 30 

Samuel 30 

Kings .31 

Chronicles 33 

End of the Hebrew Nationality ... 35 

Ezra 35 

Nehemiah 36 

THE BEGINNING OF THE JEWISH NATIONALITY 86 
That Nehemiah Wrote the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures, Proved 48 

Esther 49 

Job , . , . 50 

13 



14 , CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

NOT A PORTION OF THE LAW AND THE 

PROPHETS 51 

Psalms 52 

Proverbs and Ecclesiastes 54 

Solomon's Song 55 

THE PROPHETS . 55 

Isaiah 65 

Jonah 57 

Jeremiah 60 

EZEKIEL 66 

Daniel 66 

Isaiah the Younger 67 

APPENDIX 73 

Prophecy Sustained 73 

Egypt 74 

Fulfilled by Assur-banipal, King of Assyria, 

B.C. 668 74 

Fulfilled by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Baby- 
lon, B.C. 572 . .76 

Fulfilled by Cambyses, the King of Persia, 

B.C. 525 77 

Assyria 80 

Babylon 87 

Radical Views of the Bible .... 104 

Scientific Criticism 105 

Verbal Inspiration . . . ' . . .123 



ORIGIN AND FORMATION OF THE 
HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 



THE LAW. 



A CAEEFUL examination of the Old Testament 
shows that the most important part of the book is 
the work of one person. Who that person was 
we shall see later. 

The main portion, including a part of Genesis 
to Esther, is a history of the covenants made by 
the Deity with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as a 
personal or household god ; the national covenant 
or contract made by the Deity as Jehovah with 
the Hebrews, and the laws connected with and 
consequent thereon ; the incidents leading thereto 
from the call of Abram to the completion of the 
work through Moses ; and the results of the con- 
tract as shown in their history. 

" The Book of the Law of Jehovah " is the 
nucleus of the Hebrew Scriptures, the cause of 
its being, and the means of its preservation. 

15 



16 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

This history is written in a free and flowing 
style with certain peculiarities of diction and 
expression which give internal evidence of the com- 
plete unity of the whole. It covers the whole life 
of the Hebrew nation to the captivity, records the 
return from captivity, the rebuilding of the temple 
at Jerusalem, the re-establishment of the worship of 
Jehovah, the formation of the Jewish nation, and its- 
history to and including Nehemiah, and could not 
have been the work of any one previous to his 
time. 

To fully appreciate the work, we must under- 
stand the circumstances under which it was writ- 
ten. 

B.C. 606. Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah 
and carried the king, Jehoiachim, with many of the 
inhabitants, into captivity. A year after, his son 
Jehoiachin, with many others, was also carried a 
captive to Babylon ; and Zedekiah was placed as 
a tributary king on the throne. At this time, 
Jeremiah, who had foretold the captivity, proph- 
esied that their captivity would be long; he wrote 
to those who had been carried into Babylon, 
" Build ye houses and dwell in them, and plant 
gardens and eat the fruit of them, take ye wives 
and beget sons and daughters, and take wives for 
your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, 
that they may bear sons and daughters, that ye 



NEBUCHADNEZZAR, 17 

may be increased there and not diminished ; and 
seek the peace of the city whither I have caused 
you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the 
Lord for it ; for in the peace thereof shall ye have 
peace." Seventy years, he says, they shall serve 
Babylon, then they shall return and rebuild the 
temple. Desolation, he says, shall reign in Judah, 
and Jerusalem shall become a heap. 

Eighteen years after, B.C. 588, Nebuchadnezzar 
again proceeded against Jerusalem, took it, de- 
stroyed its walls, burned the temple, the palaces 
and houses to the ground, put out the eyes of the 
king, and carried him and the people captive to 
Babylon, thus ending the Hebrew nationality. 

B.C. 536. When the Jews, who by permission 
of Cyrus returned from Babylon to Jerusalem, 
arrived at the end of their long journey — just 
seventy years from the date (B.C. 606) of the 
conquering of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar — they 
found the country desolate, without inhabitants, 
overgrown in some portions with weeds, bushes, 
and brambles, and other portions covered with 
forests where wild animals lurked in the thickets. 

Jerusalem itself was a heap of rubbish ; wild 
vines and weeds covered with living green the 
debris of the city ; the streets were obliterated and 
desolation reigned supreme. This was the scene 
which met the eyes of the Jews when they 



18 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

readied the site of the holy city, the city of their 
hope and expectations. 

These emigrants, who now for the first time 
looked upon the city of David, were of the third 
and fourth generations of those who had been 
carried into captivity; they were of Babylonian 
birth, and spoke the Babylonian language, the 
Aramaic. 1 Few, but those of the priestly caste, 
had retained a knowledge of Hebrew, the lan- 
guage of their fathers ; to the remainder it was a 
dead language. 

The exigencies of the settlement of a new coun- 
try, together with the hostility of the neighboring 
tribes and nations, materially interfered with the 
establishment of schools, and advance in knowl- 
edge was very slow. The colony brought by 
Ezra seventy-nine years later, B.C. 457, and the 
thousand families who in B.C. 445 came with 
Nehemiah, also spoke the Aramaic language. 
The Hebrew national records, and the Book of 
the Law, were all in the native Hebrew tongue, 
and the obligations of the contract and the re- 
quirements of the Law were alike unknown to 
the people in general. 

1 In " Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments," Professor 
Sayce says, " In the latter days of the Assyrian Empire, Aramaic, 
the language of Aram, became the common language of trade and 
diplomacy, which every merchant and politician was supposed to 
learn, and in still later times succeeded in supplanting Assyrian in 
Assyria, and Babylonian as well as Hebrew in Palestine, until in 
its turn it was supplanted by Arabic." 



EZRA. 19 

Ezra, a studious and learned man, had no force 
of character. For ten years he had been high- 
priest, but he had done nothing to make the 
" Law " familiar to the people until the arrival of 
Nehemiah.i 

On the occasion of rejoicing at the completion 
of the walls of Jerusalem, Ezra, standing where 
he could be seen, read aloud from the Law, and 
this was interpreted to the people by some of the 
priests and Levites. Apparently this was the 
first time that the Law had been interpreted to 
them. 

Here was a people forming a new nation, desir- 
ous apparently of establishing that nation on the 
contracts made by Jehovah with their fathers, 
yet having a very slight knowledge of that con- 
tract or the laws and requirements or obligations 
connected therewith. The Law was written in 
Hebrew, to them an unknown tongue ; how should 
they be made acquainted with its requirements ? 

In this new birth of the nation, it was necessary 
that the people should know their obligations 
under the contract with Jehovah, and their duties 
under the Law. With the stimulus of new hopes 
and the beginning of a new nation, the govern- 

1 Ezra had so little energy that when he sorrowed for the un- 
lawful marriages of the Jews he did nothing, until he was urged 
by others, who promised to support and aid him in purifying the 
people. 



20 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

ment must be re-established on the basis of the 
old covenant. Besides this, they were generally 
ignorant of their own national history and of the 
ancient geography of their country. In their 
captivity, the records of the Hebrew history and 
governments had been scattered, some of them 
lost, and, being in Hebrew, if at hand, would have 
been of little use to the people. 

If this nation was to be established on the foun- 
dation of the worship of Jehovah, the circum- 
stances were ripe for some one to write in the 
vernacular a history of the incidents and events 
leading to the covenant made with their fathers, 
giving them a copy of the Law, its obligations, its 
cursings and its blessings, with a succinct history 
of events to their own time. The want was felt ; 
it was pressing, and the want found the man. 
Books were collected, and after years of prepara- 
tion and toil " The Law and the Prophets " trans- 
lated from the Hebrew into Aramaic substantially 
as we now have it was produced. 

The author of this work shows some peculiari- 
ties of diction, which enable us to trace liis 
writing throughout the work. The most promi- 
nent of these are the superfluous use of the word 
" now," and the phrase " it came to pass," in com- 
mencing paragraphs ; and the redundant use of 
the conjunction "and." These mannerisms are 



PECULIARITIES OF THE AUTHOR. 21 

prominent from Genesis to Esther, also in portions 
of Isaiah and Jeremiah. One of the New-Testa- 
ment writers uses the same expressions, probably 
unconsciously influenced by his familiarity with 
the Old Testament. They are not found else- 
where except incidentally in the Bible.^ 

In accomplishing his purpose, the author neces- 
sarily gives a history of the nation itself. He 
writes in a free, easy, almost colloquial style, and, 
bearing in mind the people's ignorance of their 
national history and of the geography of the 
country, he frequently breaks the thread of his 
narrative to give the old or Canaanitish names of 
cities or towns, and the present names of old 
places ; he makes explanations of old customs, 
and refers to the time when certain events took 
place or certain things were done. At intervals 
he brings in genealogies as claiming the particular 
attention of the Jews ; for instance, he breaks into 
the allegory in Genesis, to give the genealogy of 
Noah ; and in Exodus, sixth chapter, he interrupts 
the narrative to give the genealogy of Moses and 
Aaron ; in short, he endeavors to make their his- 
tory plain to the Jews of Palestine, for whose 

1 Any one keeping these peculiarities in mind, commencing 
with Genesis, second chapter, can trace the writer tliroiighout the 
Old Testament, and he will he convinced that one person wrote 
the whole work to Esther, and other portions as we have men- 
tioned. 



22 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

particular benefit lie was writing. None of the 
many works to wliich he refers as authority for 
the truth of his statements are now known to 
exist, and it is solely to his labors as a historian 
that we are indebted for our knowledge of the 
early history of the Jewish nation. 

That the Hebrew Scriptures were transcribed 
from very full records is shown by the frequent 
quotations of conversations, addresses, songs, etc., 
introduced by the words, "and the Lord God 
said," "and Abraham said," "and Jacob said," 
"and the Lord spake unto Moses and said," "and 
Moses said unto them." " Then sang Moses and 
the children of Israel this song," "and Samuel 
said," and others throughout the book. All com- 
munications of importance are given in literal 
transcriptions or translations of the original text. 

BOOK OF BEGINNINGS. 

Known to the Jews at this time (about B.C. 
436) was a remarkable book or manuscript of 
Aryan origin, "The Book of Beginnings." In 
the Pentateuch this book was placed before the 
commencement of the history of the Hebrew race 
and nation, because of the nature of its contents. 

Without comment or introduction the author 
commences in a literal translation, giving " God " 
as the name of the Deity acting, as in the original 



THE BOOK OF BEGINNINGS. 23 

text. " In the beginning God created the heaven 
and the earth." This literal translation is con- 
tinued through the creative week. At the fourth 
verse of the second chapter, he continues the 
account in his own words, adding to the original 
"- God," the name of '' Jehovah " as the name of 
the distinctive God who had done this work.^ 

The author believed in many gods, but wor- 
shipped only Jehovah, and he is determined that 
he only shall have the credit of the creation of 
man. In so doing he antedated the time when 
that name was given unto Moses as the name of 
the national or tutelary God of the Hebrews. 
This " Jehovah " God is continued through the 
Adam and Eve portion to Cain, when the word 
"God" is dropped, the proper name " Jehovah " 
only being used. When translating literally in 
the further construction of the work to the time 
of Moses, the author uses " God," or " Almighty 
God," as in the original text. When telling the 
story in his own words, he gives " Jehovah" as the 
name of the Deity. 

In the story of the Deluge there are two ac- 
counts which in some way have become badly 
mixed; the original can be traced by the name 

1 The prohibition, "Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah 
thy God in vain," was observed so strictly that in their writings 
and conversations the Jews substituted for his proper name the 
words "the Lord,"' so that throughout the Hebrew Scriptures 
those words cover the proper name " Jehovah." 



24 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

" God " given to the Deity, which has been liter- 
ally translated. In the other account, the days are 
increased from forty to over a year; the name 
Jehovah or Lord is given as that of the Deity; 
clean and unclean beasts, and the law of blood for 
blood, are introduced; the sons of Noah are 
numbered, and names are given to them ; also, 
there has been added a chronology from Noah to 
Abraham. All of these changes and additions 
were made after the establishment of the Hebrew 
religion. 

OEIGDf OF THE HEBEEW RACE AND 
NATION. — GENESIS. 

After completing the translation of " The Book 
of Beginnings," the author commences his history 
of the Hebrew race and nation. Beginning with 
Abram, he relates the incidents which caused him 
to leave Ur of the Chaldees, and finally migrate to 
the land of promise, giving his personal history 
and adventures; the promises made to and the 
agreements entered into by him, his change of name, , 
and the purpose and meaning of the rite of cir- 
cumcision; he records the main incidents in the 
lives of Isaac and Jacob, the events leading 
Jacob and his sons into Egypt, and the life of 
Joseph.! 

1 As Abram was native of a country full of public libraries, 
where every one could read and write, he undoubtedly kept a diary 



THE EXODUS, 25 

The servitude of the Israelites is then shoTvn : 
the infancy, and partially the life of Moses, to 
the time ^hen he is selected by Jehovah as an 
agent to work out his purposes. All this, covering 
several hundred years, is evidently taken from full 
records, as is shown in the frequent quotations 
literally translated. 

EXODrS. 

The initial steps in the Exodus are minutely 
described ; the conditional agreement between Je- 
hovah and the Israelites : the results of that 
agreement in the release of the people from the 
bondage of Egypt, and the covenant or contract 
made between Jehovah and the Israelites, which 
is sealed by the blood from the altar. This con- 
tract, and the laws consequent thereon, are trans- 
lated literally, with occasional explanatoiy notes, 
and with such connecting sentences and words as 
were necessary for a perfect understanding of the 
subject. 

It may be well to notice that in the twentieth 
chapter, eleventh verse, the reason given for observ- 

of his movements and actions. He -would probably teach his son 
the same knowledge. It is apparently from snch personal jonmals 
or records that the author obtained a knowledge of the personal 
iDcidems in the lives of the Patriarchs which he has related. In 
translating he gives the only names of the Deity kno"UTa to the 
Patriarchs, "God" or *' Almighty God."' When using his own 
language, he adds the name Jehovah. 



26 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

ing the Sabbath day is very different from the 
original, which we have from Moses himself in 
Deut. V. 15. " Remember that thou wast a servant 
in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God 
brought thee out thence through a mighty hand 
and by a stretched-out arm ; therefore the Lord 
thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath 
day." This statement is re-enforced in the 
twenty-third chapter of Exodus, " Six days thou 
shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou 
shalt rest ; that thine ox and thine ass may rest, 
and the son of thy handmaid and the stranger 
may be refreshed." 

In this book is also given an account of the set- 
ting-up of the Tabernacle, and the laws regulating 
the worship of Jehovah. 

LEVITICUS. 

In Leviticus these laws are continued, with 
laws relating to their future action, when they 
shall possess the promised land. 

NUMBEES. 

In Numbers these laws are continued and fin- 
ished. The Israelites, fearing to enter the prom- 
ised land, are detained in the wilderness forty 
years. The history of these forty years was 
apparently lost, as only a very meagre account 



DE UTER ONOMY — JOSH UA . 27 

is given of their life and journeyings. Previous 
to entering the promised land those over twenty 
years of age were numbered. 

DEUTERONOMY. 

The author makes this statement respecting 
Deuteronomy, " These be the words which Moses 
spake unto all Israel." This statement is verified 
in the contents of the book, which are written in 
the first person, with introductory remarks, and 
some notes and explanations by the author, such 
as giving in the fourth chapter a list of the cities 
of refuge on the east side of Jordan. In the 
sixth chapter he records the death of Aaron and 
the separation of the tribe of Levi, and in the last 
chapter he relates the incidents attending and 
records the death of Moses. 

JOSHIJA. 

He follows the footsteps of Joshua, giving an 
account of the principal conflicts with the Ca- 
naanites, emphasizing the blessing of success fol- 
lowing a faithful performance of their obligations 
to Jehovah, and the curse of defeat or death fol- 
lowing disobedience. 

In giving an account of the battle against the 
five kings before Gibeon, the author, immediately 
after his relation of the stupendous and long-con- 



28 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

tinued hail-storm, during which " were more " (of 
the enemy) " that died with hail-stones than they 
whom the children of Israel slew with the sword," 
he suddenly breaks into the historical narrative, 
and, oblivious of the incongruity of the terrible 
hail-storm, and the shining of the sun and moon, 
he introduces a passage from the book of Jasher 
(supposed to have been a book of heroic poems), 
in which Joshua is represented as commanding 
the sun and moon to stand still : " Sun, stand thou 
still upon Gibeon, and thou, moon, in the valley of 
Ajalon." This poetic command was evidently be- 
lieved in by the historian as an actual fact, for he 
adds, " The sun stood still, and the moon stayed, 
until the people had avenged themselves upon 
their enemies ; and there was no day like that, 
before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto 
the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for 
Israel." ^ 

After this digression, he again takes up the his- 
torical narrative of the battle, and finishes it. 

JUDGES. 

In the period of the Judges, after the settle- 
ment of the tribes in their various localities, and 

1 It was evidently the author's purpose, in making this quota- 
tion from Jasher, to bring prominently to the notice of the Jews, 
for their encouragement, the power of Jehovah, his particular 
care of his chosen people, and his prompt answer to the perfect 
trust shown by Joshua in his power and good-will. 



SAMSON'. 29 

the death of Joshua, there seems to have been a 
disintegration of the Hebrews. Each tribe pur- 
sued its own way, and made war or peace at pleas- 
ure. This disintegration gave opportunity for the 
neighboring nations to overcome and subdue them 
separately, and place them in bondage. There 
being no central government, no records were 
kept, and the author consequently had only start- 
ling and strange occurrences, or noble incidents 
and actions handed down by tradition, to record. 
It is not a connected history, but a series of strik- 
ing events exemplifying the results of the law of 
blessing and cursing, which the author brings into 
prominent notice, as a warning to his people. The 
life of Samson is apparently given to show the 
application of the same law as applied to the indi- 
vidual. Samson was vowed or consecrated to 
Jehovah as a Nazarite ; he was endowed by Jeho- 
vah with extraordinary strength; this power he 
retained as long as he was true to his vow ; his 
uncut hair was the sign and symbol of his vow ; 
when he allowed it to be cut he lost his power ; 
afterward, having repented, and his hair, the sign 
of his vow, having grown again, at his earnest 
solicitation, Jehovah restores to him his strength, 
which he uses in the destruction of the Philistines. 
The period of the Judges was apparently with- 
out law ; there being no central government, each 



80 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

tribe did whatever it deemed best. The historian 
speaks of it as a time " before there was any king 
in Israel," when '' each man did that which was 
right in his own eyes." In illustration of this 
want of law, and of their falling away from the 
worship of Jehovah and its results, he relates a 
series of events which took place in the early 
days of the Judges, some three hundred years 
before the date of Samson, when the setting-up 
and worship of strange gods by one of the tribes 
leads to deeds of violence, and finally to the death 
of some fifty thousand Israelites on the one side, 
and the destruction of twenty-five thousand men 
and the almost total wiping-out of the tribe of 
Benjamin on the other. 

EUTH. 

"Ruth" is a charming story of events taking 
place about two hundred years before Samson, 
illustrating the law of heredity, but introduced 
here apparently to show the result of faith in 
Jehovah, even by a Moabitess, and to give the 
genealogy of David. 

SAMUEL. 

" Samuel," in reality the first book of Kings, 
while in part a continuation of Judges, containing 
the personal histories of Eli and Samuel, is prin- 



SAMUEL — KINGS, 31 

cipally taken up with the events leading to the 
choice of Saul as king ; his prowess, his impa- 
tience with the restraints of the law; the early 
history of David, his valor and discretion; the 
love of Jonathan and David, the adventures of 
David as an outlaw, and the death of Saul; the 
accession of David to the throne ; his success in 
solidifying the nation, in subduing the surround- 
ing nations, in establishing peace, and the great 
increase of the nation in power and wealth. 



KINGS. 

In Kings the history of David is continued; 
his resolve to erect a temple to Jehovah, for which 
he prepares the means ; the placing of Solomon on 
the throne; the death of David; the erection of 
the Temple by Solomon, his glorious reign, the 
enlargement of the dominion, power, and wealth 
of Solomon, and his death are recorded. 

The formation of the monarchy, and the reigns 
of Saul, David, and Solomon, are perhaps the most 
romantic as well as the most interesting portions 
of Hebrew history, to the events of which the 
Jew refers with pride and delight. While this 
portion is given in some detail, the history from 
Joshua down is made to emphasize the lesson he 
is desirous of teaching the Jews, namely, the con- 



32 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

stant fulfilment of the blessings and cursings of 
the law. 

The histories of the divided kingdoms of Israel 
and Judah are then taken up and carried on side 
by side. The government of each of the kings, 
the character and result of their reigns in the 
light of their obligations to Jehovah, the good 
resulting from obedience and the ill effects of 
disobedience, are portrayed to the destruction of 
Samaria and the carrying of Israel captive to 
Assyria, B.C. 721. The reason given therefor is 
that the Israelites " did those things that were not 
right against the Lord their God." "So was 
Israel carried away out of their own land to 
Assyria unto this day." 

The author interrupts his judgments of the 
reigns of Israel and Judah, to give his people a 
glimpse of the doings of the early prophets, the 
chief of whom at this time were Elijah and Elisha. 
These prophets prophesied only of the near future 
of the Hebrew nation. They had much to do 
with public events, and we consequently obtain 
more or less of the history of the two nations for 
some seventy or eighty years. These, with other 
prophets, held a conspicuous position among the 
Hebrews, and served to keep alive, by their teach- 
ings and their acts, the waning authority of Jeho- 
vah. About eighty years after the death of Elisha, 



CHRONICLES. 33 

in the reign of Uzziah, king of Judah, Isaiah 
appears as a prophet, and takes even a more con- 
spicuous position in Judah than did the former 
prophets. 

After the destruction of Israel the author con- 
tinues the judgments of the kings of Judah, occa- 
sionally recording incidents of national importance 
or of religious interest. 

In the reign of Josiah, the Temple was by his 
order cleaned and repaired ; for seventy-five years 
it had been desecrated by the worship of other 
gods or had lain deserted. During this cleansing 
a copy of the " Book of the Law " was found and 
brought to Josiah, who re-established the worship 
of, and with the people renewed their covenant 
with, Jehovah. 

CHEONICLES. 

The early part of Chronicles contains genealo- 
gies from Adam to the captivity, taken from the 
" Books of the Kings of Israel and Judah." 

The author then begins a separate history of 
Judah, commencing with the death of Saul and 
the choice of David as king. Passing over most 
of what had been written of David in the book of 
Samuel, he gives in some detail David's prepara- 
tion for removing the ark of the covenant to, and 
its establishment in, Jerusalem, the appointing the 



34 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

services of worship, and the renewal of the cove- 
nant of their fathers.^ 

He then gives an account of the preparations 
made by David for the erection of the Temple, his 
making Solomon king, and of David's death. 

Solomon built the Temple, placed therein the 
ark of the covenant, the altar, the molten sea, the 
lavers, candlesticks, table, and all the various in- 
struments and utensils used in the worship of 
Jehovah, and dedicated the Temple with great 
pomp and rejoicing. He became very rich, many 
kings sent him presents, and others paid him tri- 
bute. He built Tadmor of the desert and other 
cities, and the country was very prosperous. 

An account of the events in the reigns of the 
kings of Judah, much more full than that in Kings, 
is given, the reign of each king being again judged 
as having done " that which was right," or as hav- 
ing " done evil," in the sight of the Lord. 

In the reign of Uzziah, king of Judah, Isaiah 
the prophet appears, and for the next fifty years, 
during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and 
Hezekiah, he is a prominent figure in the history 
of Judah. Some eighty years after his death, in 
the reign of Josiah, Jeremiah appears, and, until 

1 This was the j&rst natioaal acknowledgment and renewal of 
the covenant made by their fathers with Jehovah since the days 
of Joshua. 



END OF THE HEBREW NATIONALITY, 35 

the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of 
the people, he does not cease to warn and advise 
them. 

END OF THE HEBREW NATIONALITY. 

The book of Isaiah should be read in connection 
with the histories of the kings in whose reigns he 
lived, and that of Jeremiah should accompany the 
history of King Josiah and the other kings to 
the destruction and fall of Jerusalem. The stir- 
ring events of the last years of the Hebrew nation, 
wliich are mentioned in a few paragraphs in 
Chronicles, make a large part of the book of Jere- 
miah, and they give a vivid and lifelike picture of 
the closing scenes of the first or Hebrew nation- 
ality. 

Seventy years after the taking of Jerusalem by 
Nebuchadnezzar, the returning Jews arrived at the 
site of the holy city. Here they laid the corner 
stone of a new Temple to be dedicated to the wor- 
ship of Jehovah, the tutelar and national God of 
their fathers. 

EZRA. 

In Ezra we find the history of the movement, a 
list of those who returned from the captivity, and 
a sketch of what had been done until the coming 
of Nehemiah, ninety years after the first arrivals. 



36 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 
NEHEMIAH. 

In Nehemiah we have a continuation of the 
history of the new nation in the first person, until 
he returned to Persia. 

THE BEGmNlNG OF THE JEWISH NATIONALITY. 

To Nehemiah is due the credit of rebuilding the 
walls of Jerusalem, restoring the ancient religion, 
and establishing on a firm basis the poor and 
struggling colony of Jews in Palestine, still weak 
and scattered and without national organization, 
after ninety years of growth as a Persian depend- 
ency. 

Still greater honor belongs to him for his labors 
in collecting together the Hebrew records, scattered 
as they were throughout Persia and Babylonia; 
translating into the Aramaic tongue (the language 
of Babylonia) the contract m^ade by their fathers 
with Jehovah, together with the law, and the 
blessings and cursings connected therewith; and 
also, from the records mentioned, translating into 
the same vernacular an epitome of the history of 
their people for a thousand years, with particular 
reference to the results of their contract with 
Jehovah as shown in each period of their exist- 
ence ; a work without which we should to-day 
have no Old Testament, and perhaps no Bible. 



NE HE MI AH, 37 

As the founder of the second or Jewish nation- 
ality, Nehemiah deserves a more prominent posi- 
tion than has been given him. 

He was a man of eminence and wealth ; a de- 
vout believer in Jehovah ; a man of great energy 
and perseverance, and a trusted friend of the king 
of Persia. 

Excited to compassion by the report of the 
poverty, suffering, and helpless condition of the 
colony of his faith in Palestine, and desirous of 
aiding and strengthening the infant nationality, 
he obtained leave of absence for a term of years 
from his sovereign, and with the appointment of 
governor, and with letters of credit to various rulers 
and other officials to aid him in his purpose of re- 
building the walls of Jerusalem and a palace for the 
governor's residence, he proceeded on his journey. 

On arriving at Jerusalem, he made a private 
inspection of the city, and, finding it still '' lying 
waste," he called together the priests, nobles, and 
rulers, and, rebuking them, proposed that they 
unite in building again the city walls. Stung by 
his rebuke, and aroused by his enthusiasm, they 
resolved to attempt the work. Each prom.inent 
family agreed to build a certain portion of the 
wall ; thus apportioned, and urged by a spirit of 
emulation, the wall began to appear above the 
surrounding debris. 



38 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

When it was about half built, the Samaritans, 
Ammonites, and others, enemies of the Jews, 
heard of it, and they '' conspired together to come 
and to fight against Jerusalem and to hinder it." 
The people living in the neighborhood of these 
opposing nations also attempted to dissuade the 
Jews from continuing the work, saying '' they will 
be upon you." Nothing daunted, however, Nehe- 
miah armed the people, and set some to watch 
while others builded. He encouraged the nobles 
and rulers to continue, claiming that Jehovah 
would help and protect them. He also set his 
own servants, part to work on the walls, and part 
with weapons to watch. The builders and " every 
one had his sword girded to his side," and a watch 
was kept up day and night. 

In the midst of these proceedings, trouble arose 
among the people. This building interrupted 
their work at home ; some of them were in debt, 
and had mortgaged their farms ; the children of 
others had become, or were liable to become, bond- 
servants to their richer brethren. 

Aroused to indignation by this state of affairs, 
Nehemiah called together the nobles, rulers, and 
wealthy men; reproved them for their greed, 
showing what had been done by the Jews in 
Babylonia and Persia for the relief of their poorer 
countrymen, and fairly shamed them into releasing 



BEGINNING OF JEWISH NATIONALITY. 39 

their debtors, and restoring to their homes those 
who had become bond-servants. 

In connection with this matter, Nehemiah says 
that former governors had received large sums from 
the people, as salaries; and that "even their ser- 
vants bore rule over the people, but so did not I ; " 
on the contrary, all his "servants worked upon 
the wall, and for twelve years he received no 
salary," supporting personally his whole establish- 
ment, and in addition he says, " there were daily 
at my table one hundred and fifty of the Jews and 
rulers, besides those that came unto us from among 
the heathen that are about us." 

In the face of the threats of their foes, and the 
lukewarmness and even the secret opposition of 
some of the Jews, Nehemiah continued the work 
until the walls were up, the gates set in place, and 
the work finished. He then established rules with 
regard to the opening and shutting of the gates, 
and placed the city in charge of his brother, and 
the ruler of the palace. Thus far this liistory of 
Nehemiah is written in the fii^st person, and is his 
own account of his individual work as governor. 
From this time he uses the public records in the 
continuation of his history, occasionally, how- 
ever, injecting his distinct personality into the 
record. 

The completion of tliis great work aroused the 



40 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

people to a desire (perhaps aided by some judi- 
cious words of Nehemiah) for a knowled^^e of the 
law and of their obligations under it. They there- 
fore assembled in the city and requested Ezra, the 
priest, to bring " the book of the law of Moses," 
and read it to them. This was done. Ezra read the 
Hebrew record, and, as he read, some of the Levites 
and scribes translated the sentences into the lan- 
.guage of the people (the Aramaic), " and the 
ears of all the people were attentive unto the book 
of the law/' And Nehemiah said unto the people, 
" this day is holy unto the Lord your God." He 
told them to be joyful and they rejoiced, " because 
they had understood the words that were declared 
unto them,'''' Notwithstanding Ezra had been with 
them ten years, this was apparently the first time 
that that generation had heard and understood 
the words of the law. 

This did not satisfy them, for the next day they 
again came together, and again called upon Ezra 
and the scribes, " even to understand the words of 
the laivT As they read, it was found that that 
very week was the time for the Feast of the 
Tabernacles ; and they were told to gather palm 
and other branches, and make booths on the roof 
tops and in the streets, and eat under them and 
rejoice ; and they made booths, and sat under them, 
"and -there was very great gladness. Also, day 



NEHEMIAH'S CO VEX A XT. 41 

hi/ day^ from the first day unto the last day, he 
(Ezra) read in the book of the law of God." 

Taking advantage of the new religious enthu- 
siasm of the people, Xehemiah caused a written 
covenant to be drawn up, binding the signers of 
the covenant, under an oath and a curse, to *' walk 
in God's law which was given by Moses," and " to 
observe and do all the commandments of the Lord 
our God," at the same time binding themselves to 
support the temple services, to bring their offer- 
ings of the first fruits of all their possessions, and 
to pay tithes for the support of the priesthood. 
This covenant was signed by Xehemiah, by the 
priests, Levites, and the rest of the people. 

This matter, which was a work of time, — re- 
quiring not only perseverance, but also a persuasive 
abihty to overcome objections and reconcile oppos- 
ing interests, — having been accomphshed, the 
next thing was to people the city. 

It is worthy of note that in the ascription of 
praise with which this covenant begins, Jehovah 
is for the first time addressed as '• Thou, even 
thou, art Lord alone ; thou hast made heaven, the 
heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, 
and all thino-s that are therein, the seas, and all 
that is therein ; and thou preservest them all ; and 
the host of heaven worshippeth thee." 

The Jews generally had established themselves 



42 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

in various towns and localities outside of Jerusa- 
lem, being engaged principally in farming and in 
the raising of sheep and cattle. Jerusalem re- 
mained almost uninhabited. It was the home of 
the governor and the seat of government, " and 
the rulers of the people dwelt at Jerusalem." 
Nehemiah gives a list of 3044 inhabitants. 

A call being made for people to occupy the city, 
a few offered to do so, but the number was so 
small, it was decided that one in every ten of the 
inhabitants of Palestine should remove to Jerusa- 
lem, and who should go was determined by lot. 
The natural increase in Palestine, in ninety years 
of peace, would give at least a half-million of 
inhabitants, and this movement would give to 
Jerusalem fifty thousand citizens, and make it a 
city of some prominence and importance. 

To carry out this programme, several years were 
necessary. Debris was cleared away, streets were 
laid out, houses built, and all the various trades 
and occupations necessary to the requirements of 
a large city were provided. This done, Jerusalem 
began to take upon itself an appearance worthy 
its old name and reputation. 

All this work was done openly, with the full 
knowledge and sanction of the king of Persia, 
and in some points directed by him. Nehemiah 
says that " Pethahiah the son of Meshezabeel, of 



REPEOPLING OF JERUSALEM. 43 

the children of Zerah the son of Judah, was at the 
king's hand in all matters concerning the people." 

Finally, when the repeopling of the city had 
been accomplished, it was determined that the 
walls of the city should be dedicated. The city 
was now a city in fact as well as in name ; the 
walls protected fifty thousand people, and there 
would now be a meaning in the service. We are 
given an account of the services, and of the en- 
thusiasm of the people ; '' for God had made them 
rejoice with great joy; the wives also and the 
children rejoiced, so that the joy of Jerusalem was 
heard afar off." 

To establish the services of the Temple on a 
firm basis, treasurers were appointed over "the 
chambers for the treasures, for the offerings, for 
the first fruits, and for the tithes ; to gather into 
them out of the fields and the cities the portions 
of the law for the priests and Levites." 

Nehemiah had been at Jerusalem apparently 
about ten years ; on his arrival he had found the 
Jews dispirited and poor, without a religion, with- 
out a purpose ; Palestine a mere colony, dependent 
on Persia, and Jerusalem a waste. By his great 
energy, skill, and perseverance, he had changed 
the whole aspect of affairs, and when he returned 
to Persia, in accordance with his original promise 
to the king, he left the country prosperous, full of 



44 ORIGIN OF HEBREV/ SCRIPTURES. 

enthusiasm for their new religion, and with a 
growing patriotism for their renewed nationality. 
During his absence he retained his rank as gover- 
nor, and his establishment, with its freedom of 
support for the homeless and strangers arriving at 
Jerusalem. 

He found the king at Babylon, and he employed 
his time, while in Babylonia and in Persia, in 
searching for and gathering together the various 
religious, biographical, and historical works men- 
tioned by him as authorities for his history. The 
Jews, upon the destruction of their nation, had 
carried with them into Babylon the records of their 
national history ; these were still in the hands of 
their descendants, and from them they were ob- 
tained by Nehemiah. 

The author of the Maccabees says that " Nehe- 
miah gathered together the acts of the kings and the 
prophets^ and of David^ and the epistles of the 
kings concerning the holy city^^ and credits him 
with '-'•founding a library ; " he also speaks of 
" the writings and commentaries of Nehemiah^^ and 
says of the library, and of other things collected 
by Judas, " They are still with us." 

Twelve years from the date of his first visit to 
Jerusalem, Nehemiah obtained permission to return 
to the city of his adoption. On his arrival he 
resumed his duties as governor. He found some 



TOBIAH THE AMMONITE. 45 

abuses had grown up in his absence which needed 
his personal attention, and he continues the narra- 
tion of events in the first person. 

In accordance with the requirements of the law, 
the Ammonites and Moabites had been " separated 
from Israel" and had been refused admission to 
the congregation. Eliashib the priest, however, 
was allied unto Tobiah the Ammonite, and, despite 
the action of the people, he had seized a great 
chamber, — " where aforetime they laid the meat 
offering, the frankincense, and the vessels and the 
tithes of the corn, the new wine, and the oil," — 
for the use of Tobiah, and no one had dared to 
interfere. As soon as known to Nehemiah, he 
proceeded at once to dispossess Tobiah. " I cast 
forth (he says) all the household stuff of Tobiah 
out of the chamber ; then I commanded and they 
cleansed the chamber, and thither brought I again 
the vessels of the house of God, with the meat 
offering and the frankincense." 

Owing to the neglect of the people to pay the 
tithes of the Levites, they had sought other means 
of support. For this he rebuked the rulers, and 
brought the Levites back to Jerusalem, " and all 
Judah paid the tithes of corn, wine, and oil," and 
he appointed treasurers to receive and disburse the 
same. 

He found a general disregard for the Sabbath ; 



46 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

men attending to their work, mercliants buying 
and selling as on other days. After some trouble 
be rectified this desecration. Learning that some 
of the Jews had married daughters of Ashdod, 
Ammon, and Moab, he caused them, as well as a 
grandson of Eliashib the high-priest, to leave the 
city, and thus cleansed it from all strangers. 

Having by his energy and decision rid the city 
of backsliding Jews, cleansed the priesthood, and 
restored the proper worship of Jehovah, he com- 
menced the great work which he had resolved 
upon, and for which he had prepared while in 
Babylonia and Persia. 

In his first visit, Nehemiah had seen the neces- 
sity for making the people better acquainted with 
their obligations as the wards of Jehovah. Their 
quick backsliding from the position in which he 
left them a few years before emphasized this 
necessity, and at his first leisure he proceeded to 
translate for the use of the new nation the book 
of the law. But this was not all ; he had several 
great objects to accomplish. 

First, To give to the Jews a full and clear his- 
tory of all the circumstances connected with the 
call of Abraham, and the beginning of their race, 
and of the principal events leading up to the 
covenant or contract made by Jehovah with their 
fathers. 



PLANS OF NEHEMIAH, 47 

Second^ To make them acquainted with the con- 
tract itself, its blessings and cursings, and the laws 
connected therewith and consequent thereon. 

Thirds To give them, as far as possible, a knowl- 
edge of the historical events of importance, their 
localities, and such explanatory notes as would 
make the incidents of their ancient history familiar 
to them. And, 

Fourth^ To trace for their encouragement on 
the one hand, and their warning on the other, the 
results of the blessings and cursings of the law 
as exemplified in their individual and national his- 
tories. This thought, it will be seen, is carried 
out in every portion of the history he has written. 
If we read the story in this light, it will be found 
to be a perfect history of the dealings of the Deity 
as Jehovah with that people. 

Every civilized nation on the earth had its god 
or gods who were the objects of worship, and who 
were credited by those nations with giving them 
peace, plenty, earthly prosperity, and success in 
war. This loyalty was required by Jehovah. 
Serving other gods was rebellion, disloyalty, trea- 
son, and was sternly punished by the general law 
of nations. In the case of the Hebrews it was 
more ; it was a departure from the contract made 
by the fathers in the formation of the nation, a 
denial of their obligations to Jehovah and their 



48 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

dependence on him. In their constitution it 
merited severe punishment, and Nehemiah calls 
their particular attention to this matter in the 
judgments he gives of the rulers or judges of the 
Israelites, and of every reign of the kings of Israel 
and Judah. 

These " writings and commentaries " of Nehe- 
miah were ever after treasured by the Jews, and, 
with the prophetical works, became " the Law and 
the Prophets " of the Hebrew Scriptures of the 
time of the Christ. 

THAT NEHEMIAH WROTE THE HEBREW SCRIP- 
TURES, PROVED. 

There is no direct statement in the Bible that 
Nehemiah wrote the " Law and the Prophets ; " 
but the circumstantial evidence is so strong as to 
make it morally certain that no one but he could 
have done it. 

We think that we have proved in the preceding 
pages that the " Law and the Prophets " was the 
work of one hand. 

It is certain that until his advent the Jews in 
Palestine were ignorant of the law of their fathers. 
They had even forgotten their feast days. It was 
through the influence of Nehemiah that the Jews 
renewed their compact with Jehovah. He organ- 



ESTHER. 49 

ized and put in full operation the Temple services 
with the priests and Levites, and gathered the tithes 
for their support. He gave the new nation its ma- 
terial and religious start or impulse. He saw the 
people must have the law and its obligations in 
their own language, or it would again be forgotten. 
He it was who collected the necessary books form- 
ing a library of Hebrew, Historical, Personal, Epis- 
tolary, and other books, the names of twenty or 
thirty of which are mentioned or quoted as author- 
ities. His interest in the well-being of the new 
nation and in establishing the worship of Jehovah 
on a firm basis was very strong, and he is the only 
person of sufficient energy and determination to 
accomplish such an undertaking, which would be 
a work of years. Tradition says he was governor 
for forty years, and lived to a good old age. 

Finally, all commentators agree that the first six 
and the thirteenth chapters of the book of Nehe- 
miah were written by him. An examination of these 
chapters shows the same peculiarities of style, the 
same mannerisms, as do all the other books of the 
" Law and the Prophets," and it is certain that if he 
wrote the chapters mentioned he must have written 
the whole work. 

ESTHER. 

In Esther we find recorded the events in the life 
of the Jews in Persia, which led to the establish- 



50 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

ment of the feast of Purim. Those events, taken, 
as the author says, from '' the chronicles of the 
kings of Media and Persia," are evidently extracts 
from official documents. They are not of Jewish 
origin, as they contain no reference to the early 
history of the Hebrews, nor do they mention the 
name of Jehovah. In the simplicity of their 
statements they bear internal evidence of their 
truth. These events happened about one hundred 
years after the commencement of the captivity of 
the Jews, and give evidence of the great numbers 
and position of the Jews in Persia at that time. 
The author adds this to his history, apparently for 
two reasons. The first, because it showed the 
continued care of Jehovah in saving his people 
from slaughter ; the second, that he might intro- 
duce the feast to the Jews in Palestine. 

In order of time, "Daniel" precedes Esther, 
but, because of its prophetical utterances, it is 
placed with the other prophetical books. As a 
continuation of the history of the Jews, it should 
be read before Esther. 

JOB. 

The book of Job is evidently a Persian produc- 
tion. The scene of the poem is laid in Southern 
Babylonia, on the shore of the Persian Gulf. The 
character of the Deity as therein set forth is 



NOT OF THE LAW AND PROPHETS. 51 

Persian, not Mosaic. Satan was a being unknown 
to the Jews until after their Persian nationality 
had given them a knowledge of the Persian reli- 
gion. The Mosaic or Jewish name of the Deity 
is used only by Nehemiah in his introduction, and 
in the answer of the Deity to Job, where he inter- 
polates "Jehovah " as the name of the Deity speak- 
ing. In the conversations throughout, " God " and 
" the Almighty " are the names given to the Deity. 

The book has nothing to do with either the 
religious or material history of the Jews, and the 
author's object in including this book, we think, is 
plain. He desired to enlarge the Jews' idea of 
Jehovah. This poem showed 

First., God's special knowledge of each individual ; 
all his children are known to and cared for by him. 

Second., It controverted the Jewish idea that per- 
sonal misfortune, sickness, or disease was proof of 
a vicious life, and 

Thirds It gave a more glorious and powerful 
picture of the Deity than any presented by Moses 
or the Prophets, and this picture, the author 
claimed, represented Jehovah. 

NOT A PORTION OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS. 

Between Job and the prophetical works are the 
Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of 
Solomon. None of these books have the slightest 



62 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

bearing on the purpose Nehemiah had at heart; 
they are no part of the material or religious history 
of the Hebrews. They have no introduction, nor 
is there any cause for their appearance in this place. 
David performed on the harp before the Lord, and 
it is possible some of the Mosaic Psalms may have 
been written by him, but most of them are far be- 
yond his spiritual position and knowledge. 

PSALMS. 

Trinitarian commentators acknowledge that 
many of the Psalms are wrongly attributed to 
David. They generally divide them into five 
parts, as belonging to five periods of time, extend- 
ing to the second nationality after the return from 
the captivity. 

In 1 Chron. xvi., we have David's song of 
praise upon the establishment of the ark in Jeru- 
salem. This song is thoroughly Mosaic, and gives 
us an utterance of David's, wherewith to try 
the Psalms. If we compare this production with 
the greater part of the Psalms, we find a world- 
wide difference. It is almost impossible that the 
same hand which penned that ascription of praise 
should have also written the 19th Psalm, "The 
heavens declare the glory of God ; " the 23d, 
"The Lord is my shepherd;" the 24th, "The 
earth is the Lord's;" the 34th, " Trust in God;" 



PSALMS, 53 

or the Both, 39tli, 40tli, 42d, 43d, 51st, and many 
others. 

It is true we have in 2 Sam. xxii. a song of 
praise of a higher character than that mentioned 
in 1 Chron. xvi. ; but on examination we find it 
is not David's, and does not belong there. No 
occasion calls for it ; it is pushed in without cause 
between the 21st and 23d chapters : it interrupts 
the narrative ; we find further that it is a copy of 
the 18th Psalm, and the incidental reference to 
the Temple shows it was not written until after 
the death of David. 

The 22d, 26th, 27th, 28th, and other Psalms 
ascribed to David also have allusions to the Tem- 
ple. Others, like the 79th, 100th, and 137th, were 
evidently written while the Hebrews were in cap- 
tivity. The 107th, 122d, 126th, 135th, 138th, 
147th, and others refer to the rebuilding of Jeru- 
salem after the return from captivity. 

Many of the Psalms recognize God as the crea- 
tor and sustainer of the universe, but no other 
Old Testament writers until Isaiah the younger, 
in the time of the captivity, do so. 

In the 17th Psalm, and perhaps in one or two 
others, there is a distinct recognition of a future life. 

David was a zealous supporter of the authority 
of Jehovah and of the Mosaic law throughout his 
life, and always acknowledged his dependence on 



54 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

Jehovah for Ms success. In this, he was a man 
after God's own heart, but in this only. Judged 
by the light of his time, he was not only a success- 
ful but a good king. Yet he was an adulterer, a 
murderer, and a cruel and bloodthirsty conqueror. 
While he might have believed it was his duty to 
utterly destroy the enemies of his country, such 
acts as are described in 2 Sam. xii. 31, were not 
called for. "And he brought forth the people 
(the Ammonites) that were therein, and put them 
under saws, and under harrows of iron, and made 
them pass through the brick-kiln, and thus did 
he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon." 
That is, he sawed them asunder, tore them to 
pieces with the harrow, and baked them alive 
in the brick-kilns. Can such a foul murderer, 
such a cruel and bloody conqueror, have written 
the Psalms mentioned in the paragraphs above ? 
Impossible. Some of the Mosaic Psalms may 
have been written by him, but those that are 
generally loved and indorsed by Christians are 
the work of a later period, a higher and more 
spiritual inspiration; they are a prevision of the 
coming of the Christ and of his teachings. 

PROVERBS Xmy ECCLESIASTES. 

Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are not religious writ- 
ings ; incidentally they show influences of a higher 
type than the time of Solomon. 



ISAIAH. 55 

Solomon's song. 

Commentators have in vain endeavored to find 
a meaning in Solomon's Song. If it is remem- 
bered that through the whole life of the Hebrew 
nation large numbers worshipped Ashtoreth or 
Venus, and that in the days of Jeremiah the 
people generally sacrificed to the queen of heaven, 
as they then called her, it may show the origin of 
and account for the presence of these amorous 
songs. See Jeremiah xliv. 15-30. 

Probably none of these books were known to 
Nehemiah; they form no part of the Law and 
the Prophets, and they were undoubtedly placed 
in their present position at a much later period. 

THE PROPHETS. — ISAIAH. 

Many of the prophetical writings show the 
mark of the same pen that wrote the Law. 

Nehemiah introduces the prophecies of Isaiah by 
the statement that they were written " in the daj^s 
of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of 
Judah." The vision of Jehovah (6th chapter) 
occurred "in the year that King Uzziah died." 
In the 7th chapter Nehemiah recites the causes 
leading to Isaiah's assurance to Ahaz that Rezin 
and Pekah shall not prevail against Jerusalem. 
Then come prophecies against Assyria, Babylon, 



56 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

Moab, Syria, Egypt, and Ethiopia, against Tyre 
and against Jerusalem. In the 36th and 37th 
chapters, Nehemiah gives an account of the inter- 
view between Rabshakeh, an officer of Sennacherib 
king of Assyria, with Eliakim, Shebna, and Joab, 
officers of King Hezekiah: and the appeal of 
Rabshakeh to the people, the appeal of Hezekiah 
to Isaiah, his prophecy, the message of Sennache- 
rib, the prayer of Hezekiah, the message of Isaiah, 
and the death of Sennacherib according to Isaiah's 
prophecy. 

The history is continued in the 38th chapter, in 
the record of the sickness of Hezekiah, the message 
of Isaiah, and the lengthening of his (Hezekiah's) 
days. In the 39th chapter Nehemiah continues the 
history of the times in connection with the acts of 
Isaiah, giving the letter of Merodach-baladan, 
king of Babylon, the indiscreet action of Heze- 
kiah, and the prophecy of Isaiah against his house. 
This apparently ends the prophetic utterances of 
Isaiah. At the 40th chapter an unknown prophet 
appears who will be mentioned later. 

Joel and Hosea's prophecies were uttered to 
the Israelites from twenty-five to forty years before 
the time that Isaiah warned Judah. Amos also 
prophesies against Israel in the days of Jeroboam, 
son of Joash, king of Israel, "two years before the 
earthquake," which, Zechariah says, was "in the 



JONAH. 67 

days of Uzziah, king of Judah." Thirty-five years 
after Amos and Hosea, MiCAH prophesies ; his 
utterances are against both Judah and Israel. 
NahuinI, thirty-five years later still, prophesies 
against Nineveh ; Habakkuk, nearly one hundred 
years later, against the Chaldseans, Zephaniah 
against Judah, and Obadiah against Edom. 

JONAH. 

Distinct from all the other prophetic writings is 
the book of Jonah. The books of the prophets 
from Isaiah to Malachi, excepting Jonah and 
Daniel, are full of promises, reproofs, and warnings 
to the Hebrews, of threats against and denuncia- 
tions of the various peoples and nations with 
whom they came into contact. 

Jonah, on the contrary, gives neither warnings 
to the Jews nor denunciations to other nations, 
except the message sent to Nineveh; the very 
nation against whom, a few years after, Isaiah and 
the other prophets hurl prophecies of destruction 
and annihilation. 

The very full history of Assyria which we now 
have from her own records, contemporary with 
that of the Hebrew nation from David down to 
the destruction of Nineveh, shows that no such 
incident as that recorded in Jonah could have 
taken place, 



68 ORIGIN OF HEBREYi SCRIPTURES, 

The Ninevites liad tlieir ov/n gods, wliom they 
held ill the hio^hest esteem and reverence ; several 
of them they believed were self-existent; they 
were endowed with the various powers and attri- 
butes of the Deity. Through their favor, the 
Assyrians, as a nation, obtained their victories, 
and by their love and care they enjoyed fruitful 
seasons and were protected from famine and pesti- 
lence. 

At the date of Jonah it is doubtful if they had 
ever heard of Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, 
and, if they had, it would only be to desjjise him, 
as the god of a small and insignificant nation, of 
whose power they had no fear; a nation, in fact, a 
portion of whom a few years after this date they 
made tributary to themselves, and still later de- 
stroyed, carrying their inhabitants captive to Assy- 
ria. There never was a time when they would 
have listened or paid attention to a message such 
as is represented as delivered by Jonah. 

That being the case, what is the story, and what 
does it mean ? 

Apparently it is a parable, written to teach a 
lesson. With the Hebrews a miracle was a nat- 
ural event. It vv-as familiar to their minds from 
its daily occurrence in the early life of their 
nation, and its power had been shov/n in every 
exigency of their national existence, when they 



the' LESSONS OF JONAH, 59 

depended on Jehovah their God ; and they would 
not hesitate to use such a power to illustrate a 
tale, or to point a moral lesson, as is done in this 
case. 

This parable contains several lessons, needed 
not only by the Hebrews of that day, but lessons 
which the Christians of this day may lay to heart 
and profit by. 

The fii'st lesson shows God's individual knowl- 
edge of each man, and the duty laid upon him to 
perform. He cannot attempt to evade this work 
without danger to himself and to others. If in 
his misery, disobedience, and sin the man repents, 
then the Deity will bring him out of the depths, 
and give him another chance to fulfil his obliga- 
tions. 

The second is the power of and the answer to 
prayer. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his 
God out of the fish's belly ; " I cried, by reason of 
my affliction, unto the Lord, and he heard me ; out 
of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardst my 
voice." " And the Lord spake unto the fish, and 
it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land." 

The third is a lesson of toleration. The Jews 
believed that all mankind outside of their own 
race were enem^ies of Jehovah, and that he would 
willingly destroy them. In this story Jonah is 
represented as warning the heathen city; when 



60 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

the inhabitants repented, the Deity forgave them ; 
and, in answer to Jonah's petulant remonstrance, 
he gives as a reason therefor, " should not I spare 
Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than 
six score thousand persons that cannot discern be- 
tween their right hand and their left hand; and 
also 7nuch cattle f " 

He had compassion for the ignorant inhabitants 
who knew not his law, and even for the innocent 
cattle. Is this not a lesson also for so-called 
Christians who, by their intolerant bigotry, con- 
demn the ignorant nations who know not God — 
who " cannot discern between their right hand and 
their left hand " — to eternal condemnation and tor- 
ture because of their ignorance? They would not 
have saved Nineveh any. more than would Jonah. 

JEEEMIAH. 

The prominent figure in the last days of the 
Hebrew monarchy is Jeremiah; and Nehemiah 
gives us a history of the last twenty-five years of 
the life of Judah, so far as the events therein de- 
scribed make plain the actions and prophecies of 
Jeremiah. In so doing we obtain an insight into 
the character of the people, their disregard of and 
disbelief in Jehovah, their national God, and the 
difficulties and dangers surrounding, and the suf- 
ferings of the prophet, when carrying out the be- 
hests of Jehovah. 



JEREMIAH, 61 

Nehemiah's introduction declares that Jeremiah 
commenced his work in the thirteenth year of the 
reign of Josiah, king of Judah, B.C. 628, and he 
continued until the eleventh year of Zedekiah, 
and the carrying away of Jerusalem captive, a 
period of forty years, extended a few years while 
in Egypt. 

The first nineteen chapters contain warnings 
and admonitions and prophecies, addressed princi- 
pally to Judah ; they are without date, but were 
probably uttered during the reign of Josiah. These 
utterances of Jeremiah were not relished by the 
people in general, and conspiracies were formed 
against him, which resulted in the incidents men- 
tioned in the twentieth chapter. 

Pashur, the son of Immer the priest, smote 
Jeremiah and put him into the stocks. The next 
da}^^, however, he released him. Jeremiah then 
prophesied against Jerusalem, and against Pashur 
and his house. At the same time he complained 
to Jehovah that ''I am in derision daily, every 
one mocketh me." 

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiachim, the 
son of Josiah, the people became so incensed 
against Jeremiah because of his prophecies against 
Jerusalem that " the priests and the prophets and 
all the people took him, saying. Thou shalt surely 
die." He was brought before the princes of Judah 



62 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

and charged with prophesying against the city; 
he was, however, finally released. 

In the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiachim, 
Jeremiah says that for ten years he has warned 
them " that the Lord hath sent unto you all his 
servants the prophets . . . but ye have not heark- 
ened, nor inclined your ear to hear ; therefore, he 
says, Nebuchadnezzar shall carry this people away 
captive, this whole land shall be a desolation and 
an astonishment, and these nations shall serve 
the king of Babylon seventy years." A list of 
these nations is then given, beginning with Egypt 
and ending with " all the kingdoms of the world 
which are upon the face of the earth." At another 
time he prophesies against Jehoiachim, that he 
shall be buried with the burial of an ass, and that 
his son shall be childless, and shall be carried 
away captive to Babylon, where he shall die. 

After the King Jehoiachim, the queen, the 
eunuchs, the princes, and many of the people of 
Judah and Jerusalem had been carried captive to 
Babylon, Jeremiah sends to the Jews in Babylon 
a letter informing them that their captivity shall 
last seventy years. 

In the early part of the reign of Zedekiah, who 
was placed on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar, 
under a charge of desertion, Jeremiah is seized, 
beaten, and put in prison in the house of Jonathan 



ZEDEKIAH, KING OF JUDAH. 63 

the scribe, from ^s^liich lie is removed by order of 
the king to the court of the prison in the king's 
house. At the accusation of the princes, he is 
removed from thence and lovv'ered into a miry 
dungeon, after being loaded with chains, from 
^vhich he is afterward released at the intercession 
of Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch, and is 
removed again to the court of the prison, but still 
kept in chains. The King Zedekiah then seeks a 
private interview T\T.th Jeremiah, and, upon swear- 
ing that he would not put him to death for his 
revelations, Jeremiah promises personal safety 
and the safety of the city if he shall deliver him- 
seK and city into the hands of the Chaldseans, but, 
if not, "then shall this city be given into the 
hands of the Chaldfeans, and they shall burn it with 
fire, and thou shalt not escapewDut of their hand." 
After the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchad- 
nezzar in B.C. 598, in the fom-th year of the reign 
of Zedekiah, king of Judah, Hananiah, the son of 
Azur, the prophet, prophesies, '• Thus speaketh the 
Lord, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken 
the yoke of the king of Babylon," and says that 
within two years the vessels of the Lord's house, 
the king with all the captives of Judah, shall come 
back to Jerusalem. He is rebuked by Jeremiah, 
and is told, "This year shalt thou die, because 
thou hast taught rebellion against the Lord," and 



64 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

the record is made that he " died the same year, in 
the seventh month." 

In the ninth year of the reign of Zedekiah, 
Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. At this 
time Jeremiah was still in prison. He continued 
to prophesy against Jerusalem and Zedekiah, but 
mingles with them promises of the restoration and 
the repeopling of the country. At this time, too, 
he prophesies against the Philistines, the Ammon- 
ites, the Edomites, and against Babylon. 

"In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, king of 
Judah (B.C. 588), in the fourth month and ninth 
day of the month, the city was broken up." Zede- 
kiah fled from the city, but was overtaken in the 
plains of Jericho. He was taken before Nebuchad- 
nezzar, who slew his sons in his presence, put out 
his eyes, and carried him in chains to Babylon. 

Nebuchadnezzar caused Jeremiah to be released 
from the court of the prison, removed his chains, 
and he returned to his home. Previous to doing this, 
Jeremiah saw Ebed-melech, through whose inter- 
cession he had been released from the loathsome dun- 
geon, and promised him the protection of Jehovah. 

The Chaldseans burned the king's house and 
the houses of the people with fire, and broke down 
the walls of Jerusalem. Then Nebuzar-adan, the 
captain of the guard, carried away captive into 
Babylon the remnant of the people that remained 



JUDAH TAKEN TO EGYPT. Q5 

in the city, but he left of the poor of the people, 
which had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave 
them vineyards and fields at the same time. 

Nebuchadnezzar made Gedaliah governor over 
the people remaining in the land. He was after- 
wards slain by Ishmael, of the seed royal, who then 
fled to the Ammonites. The people then consulted 
Jeremiah as to what should be done, they promis- 
ing to "obey the voice of the Lord our God." 
After prayer to God, Jeremiah delivers the mes- 
sage, promising them prosperity if they remained 
and served the king of Babylon, but if they de- 
cided to go to Egypt he threatens " that the sword 
which ye feared shall overtake you there in the 
land of Egypt, and there ye shall die." 

The people then charge Jeremiah, " Thou speak- 
est falsely ; the Lord our God hath not sent thee 
to say. Go not into Egypt to sojourn there." The 
result is given in these words, " But Johanan the 
son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, 
took all the remnant of Judah that were returned 
from all nations, whither they had been driven, to 
dwell in the land of Judah ; even men and women 
and children, and the king's daughters, and every 
person that Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the guard, 
had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the 
son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet, and 
Baruch the son of Neriah ; so they came into the 



66 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

land of Egypt, for they obeyed not the voice of 
the Lord. Thus came they even to Tahpanhes." 

After their residence at Tahpanhes, the Jews 
burned incense to other gods, for which Jeremiah 
rebuked them, and prophesied that Egypt would 
be delivered into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, 
and that the Jews who had fled there should be 
destroyed by the sword, by famine, and by pesti- 
lence. 

EZEKIEL. 

Ezekiel was a captive in Babylon. His prophe- 
cies are mostly in the shape of visions, and are 
against Jerusalem, Tyre, and Egypt ; his time 
being contemporaneous with Jeremiah. 

DANIEL. 

Daniel is one of the sons of King Hezekiah, 
who, with three of his brothers, was carried cap- 
tive to Babylon. Nehemiah gives us the incidents 
leading to their selection as attendants on the 
king; the danger of the wise men because they 
could not inform the king of the dream which he 
had forgotten; the offer of Daniel to reveal the 
dream and the interpretation thereof, resulting in 
the brothers being made rulers of the province of 
Babylon. 

The remainder of the book appears to be tran- 
scripts of public documents ; relating the throwing 



ISAIAH THE YOUNGER. 67 

of three of the brothers into the burning fiery 
furnace, and their escape, Nebuchadnezzar's proc- 
lamation of his di^eam relating to himself, its 
interpretation by Daniel, the result, and his return 
to reason. These visions, together with those of 
Daniel, were considered of national importance, 
and were made matters of public record, and ap- 
pear to have been copied verbatim^ with such con- 
necting statements as were necessary to a right 
understanding of the record. Daniel's life covered 
the seventy years of capti^dty and to the reign of 
Darius the Mede. 

It is noticeable that the Deity in this book is 
spoken of as the " God of Heaven," " The most 
high God," and in Nebuchadnezzar's proclamation 
he is styled " God of gods ; " thus giving him a 
place above all gods. 

During the life of Daniel an unknown prophet 
appears, of whom we know nothing but his 
writings. 

ISAIAH THE YOUNGER. 

At the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, the old prophet 
ceases and this new one appears without introduc- 
tion of any kind. His first words, " Comfort ye 
my people," are a key to the spirit of liis writings. 

This prophet without name might be called 
Isaiah the younger. His time is one hundred and 



68 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

fifty to two hundred years later than Isaiah, or 
about B.C. 550, and his standpoint is different. 
He is a dweller in Babylon and his utterances are 
of a joyful nature. He prophesies relief to the 
Jews through the downfall of Babylon, and names 
Cyrus as the instrument of God's will, through 
whom they will be released from bondage and be 
permitted to return to Judah. The temple will 
be rebuilt at Jerusalem, the worship of Jehovah 
restored, and the walls of the city be re-established. 
In the utterances of this unknown prophet, 
Jehovah ceases to be the tutelary god of the 
Hebrews, standing on a par with the gods of 
the surrounding nations. He for the first time 
becomes the sole and only God of the universe, 
the creator and sustainer of all. " Thus saith the 
Lord, I am the first and I am the last ; and beside 
me there is no God." "Thus saith God, the Lord, 
he that created the heavens and stretched them 
out; he that spread forth the earth and that which 
cometh out of it ; he that giveth breath unto the 
people upon it, and spirit to them that walk 
therein." These avowals of the greatness and 
power of Jehovah are many times repeated, and 
appear only in the writings of this unknown 
prophet ; they are entirely distinct from the older 
prophets, and there is a note of gladness and joy 
running through the whole of his utterances which 
separates him from all others. 



MALACHL 69 

Haggai prophesies after the return of the Jews 
to Jerusalem. About the same time Zechakiah 
issues his prophecies ; both reprove and encourage 
the Jews. 

At the ninth chapter Zechariah ceases, and 
another unknown peophet appears. He resides 
at Damascus, his time is nearly one hundred years 
earlier, or during the period of Jeremiah, and his 
utterances are against Jerusalem, Tyre, Sidon, 
and the Philistines. 

Malachi is the last of the prophets. He re- 
bukes the priests of the restored worship in the 
new Jerusalem, and his time is during the gover- 
norship of Nehemiah, probably not far from B.C. 
410. The Bible date is B.C. 397. 

All the prophets at the time of and after the 
captivity speak more or less distinctly of the com- 
ing of the Christ, of his power and rule, and the 
extent and perpetuity of his government. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 



PEOPHECY SUSTAINED. 

Prophecies form a prominent and striking portion 
of the Hebrew Scriptures. Beginning with Abram, 
they are continued through the whole history of the 
Israelites. These predictions are both personal and 
national, affecting not only the Israelites but the 
nations also with whom they came in contact. The 
fulfilment of some of them is recorded in the Scrip- 
tures, and history records the accomplishment of 
others. 

As it has been claimed that the prophecies in the 
Hebrew Scriptures against the surrounding nations 
were uttered at a point of time so near the occurrence 
of the events as to be easily foreseen, or that they 
were written out after the event had happened, and 
were then put into the mouths of these prophets, 
we have traced the fulfilment of some of them in 
the light of these statements ; and herein will be 
found prophecies against Egypt, Assyria, and Baby- 
lon, and the particulars of their specific fulfilment 
or of their continued action until the present day, as 
taken from Assyrian records and from ancient and 
modern history. 

73 



74 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 



EGYPT. 

Isaiah prophesied, according to the Bible, from 760 
to 712 B.C. German critics make his years from 740 
to 710 B.C. They also claim that chapters 40 to m 
of the book of Isaiah were written by some other 
person, at a later period. We will therefore confine 
our selections to the portions that are unquestioned. 

"Woe to the land shadowing with wings. . . . Be- 
hold, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud and shall 
come into Egypt ; and the idols of Egypt shall be 
moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall 
melt in the midst of it, and I will set the Egyptians 
against the Egyptians, and they shall iight every one 
against his brother, and every one against his neigh- 
bor ; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom ; 
and the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof 
. . . and the Egyptians will I give over into the 
hand of a cruel lord ; and a fierce king shall rule 
over them, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts. '^ . . . 
" In that day shall Egypt be like unto women ; and 
it shall be afraid and fear." ..." So shall the Assy- 
rian lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethi- 
opians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot." 

FULFILLED BY ASSUE-BANIPAL, KING OF ASSYRIA, 

B. c. 668. 

This prophecy was literally fulfilled by Assur- 
banipal, son of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, forty 
years after the death of Isaiah. Assur-banipal, in 668 



ASSUR-BANIPAL OVERRUNS EGYPT. 75 

B.C., attacked and routed the Egyptian army at Kar- 
banit, and marched on to Memphis ; the king of 
Egypt fled. Many of the petty kings of the country 
joined the victorious army and aided the Assyrians. 
Thus brother fought against brother, neighbor against 
neighbor, city against city, and kingdom against 
kingdom. Three several times was the Assyrian yoke 
thrown off, and as often did Assur-banipal reconquer 
the country. On the last occasion, about B.C. Q%5, 
the Assyrians wreaked their vengeance on the city of 
Thebes.^ " No city in the world had such a series of 
public monuments ; the temples, statues, obelisks, and 
palaces, the work of ages during the glory of Egypt, 
were now, as far as possible, disfigured and destroyed. 
The Assyrians carried away silver and gold, precious 
stones, the furniture of the palace, robes of various 
materials, horses, people, male and female, elephants 
and monkeys. Two of the great obelisks were taken 
to Mneveh as trophies ; the Assyrians boasted that 
they swept the city like a flood, and the army returned 
from Egypt laden with spoil." 

Jeremiah, B.C. 629 to 587 (Chadwick says Q>2Q> to 
584 B.C.), writes, "Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I 
will give Pharaoh-Hophra, king of Egypt, into the 
hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that 
seek his life." . . . ^^The Lord of hosts, the God of 

1 To George Smith's works, Assyria from the Earliest Times to 
the Fall of Nineveh, and History of Babylon, I am indebted for 
most of the facts relating to the actions of the Assyrian and Baby- 
lonian monarchs. 



T6 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

Israel, saith, Behold, I will punisli tlie multitude of 
No, and Pharaoh and Egypt, with their gods and 
their kings, even Pharaoh, and all them that trust in 
him ; and I will deliver them into the hand of those 
that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of his ser- 
vants, . . . and when he cometh he shall smite the 
land of Egypt, and deliver such as are for death 
to death, and such as are for captivity to captivity, 
and such as are for the sword to the sword, and I 
will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt ; 
and he shall burn them and carry them away captives ; 
and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, 
as a shepherd putteth on his garment." . . . '"He 
shall break also the images of Beth-shemesh, that is 
in the land of Egypt ; and the houses of the gods of 
the Egyptians shall he burn with fire.'^ 

FULFILLED BY NEBUCHADNEZZAK, KING OF BABYLON, 

B. C. 572. 

"B.C. 572, twelve or fifteen years after the death 
of Jeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 
marched in person into Egypt, and, defeating the 
army of Hophra, overran the country and plundered 
it of all its wealth." Hophra fell into his hands, and 
was deposed, a general named Ahmes or Amasis 
being acknowledged as king of Egypt in his stead, 
the new monarch being installed as a vassal of Baby- 
lonia. 

Ezekiel, B.C. 595 to 574, prophesies, " Son of man. 



EGYPT OVERRUN, 77 

take up a lamentation for Pliaraoh, king of Egypt, and 
say unto him : Thus saith the Lord God, I will therefore 
spread out my net over thee with a company of many 
people ; and they shall bring thee up in my net. 
Then will I leave thee upon the land, I will cast thee 
forth upon the open field, and will cause all the fowls 
of the heaven to remain upon thee, and I will fill the 
beasts of the whole earth with thee ; and I will lay 
thy flesh upon the mountains, and fill the valleys 
with thy height. I will also water with thy blood 
the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the moun- 
tains.'' . . . ^' For thus saith the Lord God: The sword 
of the king of Babylon shall come upon thee; by 
the swords of the mighty will I cause thy multitude 
to fall, the terrible of the nations, all of them : and 
they shall spoil the pomp of Egypt, and all the mul- 
titude thereof shall be destroyed." 

FULFILLED BY CAMBYSES, THE KING OF PERSIA, 
B. C. 525. 

B.C. b2^, fifty years after the death of Ezekiel, 
Cambyses, son of Cyrus the Persian, who conquered 
Babylon, proceeded against Egypt, and it fell into 
his hands. The adjacent tribes of Libyans, with the 
Greeks of Barca and Cyrene, also submitted to his 
arms. The Egyptians had made a stubborn resist- 
ance ; — Psammenitus the king was executed by order 
of Cambyses, whose armies ravaged the country, and 
the land was watered with the blood of the Egyp- 
tians. The vengeance of the Persian was terrible. 



78 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

Even now the means by whicli lie accomplislied his 
desolating work is a problem; but under him the 
prophecies were fulfilled, the idols were destroyed, 
and the images ceased out of Noph. 

For more than one hundred years Egypt remained 
a Persian possession, a province of the empire. About 
B.C. 414, the Persians were driven out, and for about 
sixty years Egypt was again governed by native 
rulers. 

But Ezekiel had prophesied, " There shall be there 
a base kingdom. It shall be the basest of kingdoms ; 
neither shall it exalt itself any more above the 
nations ; for I will diminish them that they shall no 
more rule over the nations . . . and there shall be 
no more a prince of the land of Egypt." 

About B.C. 350, Artaxerxes III. (Ochus) recon- 
quered Egypt. He " re-enacted the scenes attributed 
to Cambyses, but with a bloodthirstiness and cruelty 
of his own, and, having completely crushed out the 
last seeds of rebellion, returned to Susa with an enor- 
mous booty." 

B.C. 332, Alexander the Great having overcome the 
Persians, Egypt became a Grecian province. Here 
he founded Alexandria as the capital of the world. 
For three centuries Egypt was under Grecian rule, 
which then gave way to Eome. 

B.C. 30, Egypt became a department of the great 
Roman Empire, and so continued for nearly seven 
hundred years. 

A.D. 639, Egypt came under Mohammedan sway, 



PROPHECIES OF ISAIAH. 79 

and from that time has been a possession of the 
Turk. 

From the conquest of Egypt by Artaxerxes, B.C. 
350, to the present time, a period of oyer twenty-two 
hundred years, the sceptre has gone from Egypt ; it 
has been subject to foreign sway. It has been "the 
basest of kingdoms," it has been '• diminished," the 
land has been "' laid waste by strangers," and there 
has been •• no more a prince of the land of Egypt." / 

Egypt, the oldest, had been the most powerful »/ 
empire in the world. There was the seat of luxury 
and learning. Her history extended back so far that 
her beginning was unknown. The first glimpses we 
haye of her show her well adyanced in all the arts 
of ciyilization. Iron, steel, bronze, gold, and silyer 
were used in the mechanic arts. Painting, m.usic, 
and sculpture were studied. Their architecture was 
massive, their structures stupendous. They excelled 
in the manufacture of linen; costly furniture, rich 
with coyerings of gold cloth, adorned their houses. 
They were expert potters, glass-blowers, and carpen- 
ters, and astronomy and medicine were carefully 
studied. 

"When Isaiah uttered his prophecies, Egypt was in 
the height of her power, and a long time after (B.C. 
610) she aided in the downfall of Assyria; she 
exulted in her strength and in the power of her arms. 

If we examine these prophecies, and the records of 
the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians, we see 
how accurate was the prediction to the facts, as stated 



80 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

in these records, of events taking place from fifteen 
to seventy years afterward. Egypt was not to be 
destroyed, but to remain in existence, the basest of 
kingdoms, without native rulers forever. 

The Turkish Empire is tottering to its fall. In its 
destruction the nations of Europe will divide the 
spoils. Egypt will come under Christian sway and 
influences, and the native Egyptian race be blotted 
out of political existence forever. 

ASSYRIA. 

Of Assyria it was foretold by Isaiah, "It shall 
cease among the nations." Fifty years before the 
days of Isaiah, Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, re- 
ceived tribute from Jehu, king of Israel. Pul, or 
Tiglath Pileser II., who reigned about the time of 
Isaiah, received from Menahem, king of Israel, one 
thousand talents of silver as tribute, as recorded in 
Second Kings. The Assyrian had extended his govern- 
ment to and received tribute also from the Medes, 
Tyre, Sidon, Damascus, and Idumea, and his empire 
at that time also included Babylon. At this time it 
is that Isaiah declares, " It shall come to pass that 
when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon 
Mount Zion and upon Jerusalem, I will punish the 
fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and 
the glory of his high looks ; " again, " I will break the 
Assyrian in my hand, and upon my mountains tread 
him under foot." " Through the voice of the Lord shall 
the Assyrian be beaten down." " He shall flee from 



THE DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH. 81 

the sword, and his young men shall be discomfited. 
He shall pass over to his stronghold for fear, and his 
princes shall be afraid." 

Micah, B.C. 750, says, "They shall waste the land 
of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod 
in the entrance thereof." 

Nahum, about 715 B.C. (Chadwick, B.C. 630), says, 
" But with an overflowing flood will he make an utter 
end of the place thereof.". The manner in which the 
place should be taken is indicated. "The defence 
shall be prepared. The gates of the rivers shall be 
opened, and the palace shall be dissolved." Again, 
"Thy people in the midst of them are women, the 
gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine 
enemies ; the fire shall devour thy bars." " Then 
shall the fire devour thee, the sword shall cut thee 
off. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy cap- 
tains as the great grasshoppers which camp in the 
hedges in the cold day, but when the sun riseth they 
flee away, and their place is not known where they 
are." " Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of 
gold, for there is none end of the store and glory out 
of all the pleasant furniture. She is empty and void 
and waste, and the heart melteth, and the knees smite 
together, and much pain is in all loins, and the faces 
of them all gather blackness ; " " Thy nobles shall 
dwell in the dust, thy people are scattered upon the 
mountains and no man gathereth them ; there is no 
healing of thy bruises." 

Zephaniah, B.C. 712 to 680 (Chadwick, 630), says, 



82 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

" He will stretch out his hands against the north and 
destroy Assyria, and will make ISTineveh a desola- 
tion and dry like a wilderness, . . . and flocks shall 
lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the na- 
tions ; both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge 
in the upper lintels of it, their voice shall sing in the 
windows, desolation shall be in the thresholds, for he 
shall uncover the cedar work.'^ "This is the rejoi- 
cing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, 
I am, and there is none beside me; how is she be- 
come a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in." 

About the time of these first prophecies Assyria 
had overthrown the kingdom of Israel, and at two 
separate times had carried portions of the inhabitants 
away captive. Finally Sargon, B.C. 721, completed 
the capture of Israel and carried the citizens of 
Samaria away captive. 

B.C. 700, Sennacherib invaded Judah, took forty-six 
fenced cities, and carried 200,150 of the inhabitants 
into captivity. These cities he separated from Judah 
and divided them among the neighboring kings. He 
then captured Lachish, one of the last remaining strong 
cities of Judah, and from thence dictated terms to 
Hezekiah, the humbled king of Judah ; receiving " a 
forced tribute of thirty talents of gold, eight hundred 
talents of silver, and precious stones of various sorts, 
couches and thrones of ivory, skins and horns of 
buffaloes, girls and eunuchs, male and female musi- 
cians, together with horses, mules, asses, camels, oxen, 
and sheep, in great numbers," 



SENNACHERIB BUILDS NINEVEH. 83 

Nineveh was made the royal city by Sennacherib, 
who repaired and rebuilt it until it became a city 
^' splendid as the sun.'' Three hundred and sixty thou- 
sand men, captives taken in war, were employed in 
building it, very possibly some or many of the Hebrew 
captives were so employed. He erected the new 
palace of Koyunjik, which covered more than eight 
acres of ground and was ornamented with great 
splendor. The city formed a quadrangle of sixty 
miles surrounded by walls one hundred feet high, 
broad enough at top for three chariots to drive 
abreast, and defended by fifteen hundred towers, each 
two hundred feet high. Within were palaces, struc- 
tures by the side of whose gigantic proportions the 
grandeurs of Greek and Eoman architecture are 
dwarfed into insignificance, in whose halls kings had 
feasted and revelled, and in which he had received 
the tribute of distant nations. 

Esarhaddon, the younger son of Sennacherib, suc- 
ceeded his father B.C. 681. He "rebuilt the walls 
of Babylon, which had been destroyed by his father, 
raised again the temple of Bel, returned the various 
images of the gods which his father had carried to 
Assyria, and restored to the Babylonians the plunder 
of their cities ; and, proclaiming himself king of 
BPobylon as well as Assyria, passed much of his time 
in his southern capital." 

About B.C. 670, the whole of Palestine and the 
surrounding country submitted to Esarhaddon. In 
the list of twelve kings who submitted to his sway 



84 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

was Manas sehj king of Judah, wliom lie bound and 
brought captive to Babylon. 

A few years afterward lie conquered the Medes, 
then Arabia, and finally Egypt. 

It was during his reign that the predictions of 
Nahum and Zephaniah were uttered. 

Assur-banipal succeeded his father Esarhaddon, 
B.C. 668, and reigned forty-two years. In the latter 
years of his reign he exerted himself in ornamenting 
and beautifying Mneveh. He enriched it with spoils 
of countless cities. His conquering arms had drawn 
tribute from all nations. Thousands of captives were 
at his command, and were employed in building his 
palaces and other worts. He patronized the arts, 
established schools and colleges, collected in his Halls 
of Eecord, or Library, at Koyunjik, the extensive 
literature of a race far advanced in civilization before 
the flood. These records consisted of clay tablets 
and cylinders on which were stamped, while soft, 
the wedge-shaped or cuneiform characters, v/hich, 
being hardened in the fire, were easily handled and 
read. 

At this time Nineveh was the most splendid and 
the richest city on the earth ; its king was ruler of 
the civilized world. According to Chadwick's date, 
the most particular and distinct predictions of the 
fate of Nineveh were uttered by the prophets at this 
time, when Assyria was at the height of its power as 
here described, and twenty-four years before their 
accom plishment . 



SIEGE OF NINEVEH. 86 

Bel-zakir-iskun, about B.C. 626, was probably the 
next Assyrian monarch, but little is known of his 
reign. Being threatened by the king of Egypt on 
one side, and the Median king on the other, while 
Babylon had thrown off the yoke of servitude, he 
acted with great vigor. He raised two armies ; one 
he committed to the care of Kabopolassar, with orders 
to reconquer Babylon and protect the region of the 
Persian Gulf, while he himself proceeded against the 
king of Media. ISTabopolassar was successful, as was 
his royal master for a time, but the Assyrian monarch 
was finally driven back, and the Median king fol- 
lowed him with the intention of besieging Nineveh. 
This enterprise was checked by an irruption of 
Scythians, who crossed the Caucasus in great num- 
bers, and overran Assyria, Media, and Syria. The 
dominion of the Scythians lasted many years, but 
they were finally driven out, and the government re- 
verted to the former rulers. 

About B.C. 610, Nabopolassar, the tributary king 
of Babylon, resolved to overthrow the Assyrian 
power, by alliances with Necho, king of Egypt, and 
Cyaxares, king of the Medes. About B.C. 609, the 
war commenced, and the Assyrian king, after defeat- 
ing his enemies in three pitched battles, was obliged, 
by the continual accessions to the enemy's forces, to 
retreat to and shut himself up in Nineveh. The 
siege of Nineveh by the combined forces lasted over 
two years, the walls of the city, a hundred feet 
high and fifty feet thick, keeping out the enemy 



86 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

and foiling all their attempts to scale or breach 
them. 

In the third year there was an extraordinary rise 
of the Tigris Eiver, and the flood carried away a 
considerable portion of the wall of the city. On the 
subsiding of the flood, the besieging host entered by 
the breach and took the city. The Assyrian monarch, 
seeing that all was lost, gathered his wives and 
valuables into his palace, and, setting it on fire, 
perished in the flames. 

The allied armies swept the city with the sword ; 
and, after plundering it of all its gold and silver and 
jewels, the accumulation of centuries of aggressive 
and successful war, they destroyed its walls and re- 
duced its palaces to ashes. Nineveh was no more ; 
and Assyria ceased to exist as a separate nation. So 
thorough was the destruction of the city that even 
the site of it was lost, and for ages unknown. 

Mneveh became ^^a desolation and dry like a 
wilderness." The destruction of the dam across the 
Tigris, and of the elaborate methods of irrigation, 
produced this result. For generations " the flocks of 
the Arabs have lain down in the midst of her." 

Layard's description of the Arabs and their flocks, 
his account of the desert aspect of the region during 
the summer heats, fulfil the prophecy, " She is empty 
and void and waste." The researches of Layard show 
that it was by fire the palaces were destroyed. The 
prophecies respecting her downfall were fulfilled to 
the letter. Diodorus says, " The river, swollen with 



BABYLON, 87 

the rains, overflowed and carried away twenty fur- 
longs of the walls. Then the hing, frightened by the 
apprehension that an old prophecy, that the city 
should not be captured till the river became its enemy, 
was now fulfilled, built in his palace a large funeral 
pile, and burnt himself, his concubines, his wealth, and 
his palace to the ground. The enemy, meanwhile, 
entering by the breach in the walls, captured the 
city." Thus with an "overflowing flood" was "an 
utter end " made of Nineveh's glory, while the " fire 
devoured her," and the " sword cut her off." 

Thus were the prophecies by various prophets, 
uttered from twenty-four to one hundred and forty 
years before, literally fulfilled, and the words used in 
the prophetic denunciations by Isaiah, Nahum, and 
Zephaniah give the best descriptions of the actual 
events. 

BABYLON. 

Of Babylon, that great, that mighty city, whose 
name became a synonyme for colossal pride, power, 
and licentiousness, — the downfall was pronounced by 
some of the same prophets that predicted the down- 
fall of IsTineveh. This city figures largely in the pro- 
phetic utterances of the Hebrews. The country was 
for many years the place of their captivity, and it 
was the native country of Abram, whom they claimed 
as their ancestor. 

The Bible credits Nimrod with being the founder 
of Babylon, but the early records claim it as beiug 



88 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

a city "before the flood. Berosus, a native historian, 
possessed apparently authentic records dating back 
to about 2300 years B.C. He gives a mythical period 
of 34,080 years during which eighty-six kings reigned, 
down to a time when the country was conquered by 
the Medes, Avho reigned two hundred and twenty- 
four years. 

In the early times there appear to have been 
several districts, each with its capital city and sepa- 
rate rule. The first mentioned in the inscriptions is 
"Ur," earlier known as "Xipur," the birthplace of 
Abram. Another capital city was Karrak, a third was 
Larsa. A king named Kuder-mabuk conquered the 
country which he called Lower Babylonia. Kuder- 
mabuk was afterward overcome by Hammurabi, 
ruler of Upper Babylonia, thus uniting the whole 
country under one rule. 

Although Assyria was the child of Babylon, the 
child gradually outstripped the mother, and for 
several hundred years Babylonia, with fitful excep- 
tions, was subject to Assyria. 

In the division of the spoil at the taking of Nineveh, 
by the armies of Egypt, Media, and Babylonia, about 
B.C. 607, the southern portion of Assyria and a 
portion of Arabia fell to the king of Babylon. The 
sudden extinction of the Assyrian Empire relieved 
many of the smaller governments from the rule that 
had dominated for hundreds of years, and three 
apparently nearly equal powers took the place of 
jissyria : Egypt on the south. Media on the east, and 
Babylonia in the centre. 



NEBUCHADNEZZAR CONQUERS EGYPT. 89 

B.C. 605, Nabopolassar, king of Babylonia, became 
engaged in a discussion with Xecho, king of Egypt, 
respecting boundaries, which soon led to hostilities. 
Entering into the war with vigor, he placed his son 
Nebuchadnezzar in command of his armies, who sud- 
denly attacked and routed the Egypti?ons at Car- 
chemish, gaining thereby the control of all Syria, 
through which he marched unopposed ; receiving the 
submission and tribute of the various petty kings and 
princes, to the borders of Egypt; among these was 
Jehoiachim, king of Judah, who had been placed on 
the throne by Necho, king of Egypt, but was now 
forced to submit to the Babylonian yoke. While on 
this expedition i^abopolassar died, and Nebuchad- 
nezzar returned to Babylon to assume the govern- 
ment.^ 

B.C. 602, Jehoiachim revolted against Babylon, and 
in B.C. 598 Nebuchadnezzar swept down upon Pales- 
tine. Jehoiachim had died, and his son Jehoiachin 
had ascended the throne. Nebuchadnezzar dethroned 
him, and placed his uncle Zedekiah on the throne, 
carrying Jehoiachin and numerous other captives 
with him to Babylon.^ 

1 The Bible date is B.C. 606. 

2 Mr. Chadwick says that the Jews were in captivity hut fifty 
years, instead of seventy years, as prophesied by Jeremiah. 

Jeremiah's prophecy is against " this land and against the in- 
habitants thereof and against (not the Hebrews only, but against) 
all these nations round about . . . and these nations shall serve 
the king of Babylon (not by captivity, but by paying tribute) 
seventy years." 

We have shown above that, B.C. 605, Nabopolassar received the 



90 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

At the time of his death, B.C. 562, Nebuchadnezzar 
was master of the western world ; he had reigned 
forty years ; while carrying on his wars he had also 
employed himself in increasing the magnificence and 
grandeur of Babylon. " He rebuilt the great temple 
dedicated to Bel, and adorned it v/ith gold and pre- 
cious stones. He raised again the tower, called the 
foundation of heaven and earth. The sanctuary of 
Bel he roofed with cedar brought from Lebanon, and 
overlaid it with gold;" he also rebuilt or restored 
the temple of the moon-god, " the temples of the sun, 
of Yal, and of the goddess Gula ; the temple of Ish- 
tar or Venus, and other buildings," and, to please his 
wife, a Median princess, he built the celebrated Hang- 
ing Gardens, with arched terraces which were ca^rried 
to a height overtopping the walls of the city, were 
covered with earth, and irrigated by water raised 
from the Euphrates by machinery. In this garden 
grew all manner of trees and plants to delight the 
eyes and gratify the taste. He enriched the city 
with the spoils of other nations ; he rebuilt the walls 

submission of tlie king of Judah, and all the nations round about, 
from which time they served the king of Babylon as vassal 
nations. Nebuchadnezzar carried the king and a hirge number of 
the inhabitants of Judah captive to Babylon, and to these 
Jeremiah sends a letter, informing them of the length of their 
captivity. 

Ezra records that, B.C. 536, Cyrus issued a proclaination for the 
return of the Jews to Jerusalem, and the next year, B.C. 535, they 
"laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord," just seventy 
years from the commencement of their servitude. 

By the overthrow of Babylon the surrounding nations also 
were relieved from their subjection to the Babylonian king; 
these nations were Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon, and others. 



BABYLON THE MAGNIFICENT. 91 

of the city, and in every way increased its magnifi- 
cence and strength, and we can well credit the words 
put into his mouth by the Hebrew chronicler, " Is not 
this great Babylon that I have built for the house of 
the kingdom, by the might of my power and for the 
honor of my majesty ? '' 

Nebuchadnezzar had made Babylon so magnificent 
that it was known as Babylon the Great. Herodotus 
reports it as a "large, wealthy, important, and popu- 
lous city;" he describes it as " fifteen miles square, 
sixty miles in circumference, enclosing two hundred 
and twenty-five square miles, with walls of brick 
cemented with bitumen, three hundred feet high, and 
eighty-seven feet thick at top, the Euphrates flowing 
through the city and dividing it into tv/o parts. In 
the circuit of the walls were one hundred gates of 
brass with brazen lintels and door-posts. There was 
an inner wall enclosing the city proper, with walls 
also at the river's bank, and in these walls were brazen 
gates fronting the principal streets, which were one 
hundred and fifty feet wide and crossing each other 
at right angles. When the gates were shut, there 
was no entrance into the city proper from the river, 
and a hostile force would be shut in between the par- 
allel walls that lined it, and at the mercy of the 
besieged." All these mighty works were erected by 
the hundreds of thousands of captives brought back 
by the king in his various wars. 

The earliest prophecies of the fall of Babylon 
were made by Isaiah, 760 to 712 B.C. 



92 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

Jeremiah (Chadwick says his time was 626 to 584 
B.C.) wrote while Nebuchadnezzar was ruler of all 
the eastern world and Egypt, and at least fifty years 
before the taking of Babylon by Cyrus. When Neb- 
uchadnezzar said in his pride, "Is not this great 
Babylon that I have built ? " was there anything in 
this almost universal empire, this great prosperity, 
that could lead a contemporary to prophesy calamity ? 
Nay, was it not very improbable that such a strange 
fate, so specifically described, should overtake this 
great, this magnificent city ? How improbable that 
a capital like this should become utterly deserted and 
desolate ! 

Isaiah, speaking in the name of Jehovah, says, " I 
will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not 
regard silver, and as for gold they shall not delight 
in it.'' Jeremiah says, "Out of the north there 
cometh up a nation against her." ... "I will raise 
and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of 
great nations from the north country, and Chaldea 
shall be a spoil." ..." Behold, a people shall come 
from the north, and a great nation, and many kings 
shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth." 
These statements are repeated with slight variations. 
Even the time when the overthrow should take place 
is mentioned. 

Jeremiah speaks of Nebuchadnezzar's conquests, 
and the subjection of the neighboring kingdoms to 
his power, and, in the name of Jehovah, says, " I 
have given all these lands into the hands of Nebu- 



CYRUS THE PERSIAN. 93 

chadnezzar, king of Babylon. All nations shall serve 
him and his son and his son's son (or descendants) 
until the very time of his land come, and then many 
nations and great kings shall serve themselves of 
him.'^ In another passage he says, " These nations 
shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years, and it 
shall come to pass when seventy years are accom- 
plished that I will punish the king of Babylon, and 
that nation, saith Jehovah, for their iniquity." 

Herodotus informs us that for fifteen or twenty 
years Cyrus the Persian had been at war against vari- 
ous nations, and in the spring of 538 B.C. he led his 
conquering legions to the plains of Babylon. For 
this undertaking he had swelled his forces from 
distant nations and many different people. The 
armies of these subjugated nations were incorporated 
with those of the Medes and Persians, and they 
approached Babylon from the north. 

The leader of the invading host was designated by 
Isaiah the younger, "Thus saith the Lord to his 
anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden 
to subdue all nations before him." . . . 

... "I will open before him the two-leaved gates, 
and the gates of brass shall not be shut. ... I will 
give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches 
of secret places, that thou mayest know that I the 
Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of 
Israel." 

The fulfilment of these prophecies seemed impos- 
sible, yet they came to pass, and the method by 



94 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

which they were accomplished is also foretold. "A 
drought is upon the waters and they shall be dried 
up. ... I will make drunk her princes and her wise 
men and her mighty men, that they may rejoice and 
sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake." 

A battle was fought before the walls, and the Per- 
sians obtained the victory ; the Babylonians retreated 
to the city, and Cyrus immediately commenced the 
siege. The city was invulnerable to attack, and for 
full two years the siege continued. The Babylonians 
had laid up vast quantities of provision, and the ex- 
tent of ground within the walls was so great, they 
could raise crops sufficient to support its inhabitants. 

Confident and secure, they derided the invader 
from their walls. Their pride was excessive, they 
made light of the siege, and the king and his nobles 
passed the time in revelry and feasting. We have a 
picture in Daniel of the feast in which Belshazzar 
with a thousand of his lords participated on the very 
night in which Babylon was taken. 

Herodotus says, " As tiiey were engaged in festival, 
they continued dancing and revelling. . . . The vigi- 
lance of the guards was relaxed. The court and the 
people were lulled into false security, the river gates 
were left open. Cyrus turned off the water of the 
Euphrates into the artificial lake above. Had the 
Babylonians been apprised of what Cyrus had done, 
they could have closed the gates of the inner city, 
and, mounting the walls on both sides of the stream, 
would have caught the enemy in a trap and annihi- 



THEIR TEMPLES AND RICHES TAKEN. 95 

lated them. But the gates were open, the enemy 
entered, and the slaughter began. Owing to the vast 
size of the city, the inhabitants of the inner city 
knew nothing of the taking of the outer portions 
until the enemy were upon them." 

Jeremiah's prophecy gives us a description of what 
actually took place. "A sword is upon the Chal- 
deans and upon the inhabitants of Babylonia, and 
upon her princes and upon her wise men, upon her 
horses and upon her chariots, and upon all the mingled 
people that are in the midst of her, and they shall 
become as women ; a sword is upon her treasures, and 
they shall be robbed." 

The riches of Babylon were immense ; the spoils 
of many years of war and the tribute of nations had 
been poured into it. It had been the centre of the 
world's commerce and industry, and vast wealth had 
been accumulated, much of which was "hidden in 
secret places." The temples were highly ornamented 
and enriched with gold, silver, and precious stones, 
and many of their gods were made of solid gold. 
Their fate was foretold. "Bel boweth down, Nebo 
stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, they could 
not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into 
captivity. . . . Babylon is fallen, and all the graven 
images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground, 
and they also became the prey of the conqueror." 

Babylon was not to be suddenly destroyed as was 
Nineveh. " I will punish Bel in Babylon. . . . The 
nations shall not flow together any more unto 



96 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

her. . . . Babylon shall sink, and shall not rise from 
the evil that I will bring upon her. . . . Come down 
and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon, sit 
on the ground. There is no throne, daughter of the 
Chaldeans ; sit thou silent, get thee into darkness, for 
thou shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms." 

Cyrus removed the seat of empire to Shushan, and 
Babylon began to decay. 

Alexander the Great held court in Babylon B.C. 324. 

His successor, Seleucus I., B.C. 312, took the mate- 
rials from Babylon to build the city of Seleucia, on 
the banks of the Tigris. 

About B.C. 140, it was taken by the Parthians, and 
Ctesiphon was founded on the opposite side of the 
river. 

In the first century of the Christian era, although 
much reduced, it still contained a population of six 
hundred thousand. 

In A.D. 114, it became the possession of the Eo- 
mans, again in A.D. 199, and again in A.D. 363 under 
Julian. 

About this time Gibbon says, " The adjacent pas- 
tures were covered with flocks and herds. The park 
was replenished with pheasants, peacocks, ostriches, 
roebucks, and wild boars. Nine hundred and sixty 
elephants were maintained for the use of the king. 
Six thousand guards successively mounted before the 
palace gates, and treasures of gold, silver, gems, silks, 
and aromatics were deposited in a hundred subter- 
ranean vaults." 



BABYLON IN RUINS. 97 

Isaiah had said, " Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, 
the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as 
when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall 
never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from 
generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian 
pitch his tent there ; neither shall the shepherds 
make their fold there, but wild beasts of the desert 
shall lie there ; and their houses shall be full of dole- 
ful creatures : and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs 
shall dance there, and the wild beasts of the islands 
shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in 
their pleasant palaces." 

At a somewhat later date, '^ the great towns at the 
north of Babylon, which had succeeded to its wealth 
and fortunes, formed, so to speak, one street of 
twenty-eight miles." 

About A.D. 650, the country fell into the hands of 
the Mohammedans, who erected a capital for their new 
empire at Bagdad. The materials for building were 
largely taken from Seleucia and Ctesiphon, which had 
fallen into ruins, these materials having been pre- 
viously taken from Babylon. 

During these events the decay of Babylon had 
been rapid, and finally the water of the Euphrates, no 
longer kept within bounds by embankments, poured 
over the level plain, and transformed it into malarial 
swamps. Temples, palaces, and mansions of brick 
became masses of ruins. The whole plain became 
the seat of virulent disease. The canals, being choked 
or broken^ ceased to irrigate the land, and the former 



98 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

fruitful plain became arid and waste, the home only 
of the wandering Arab. 

Layard describes the plain as covered with a per- 
fect net-work of ancient canals and water-courses. 
" The face of the country," he says, " is dotted over 
with mounds and shapeless heaps, the remains of 
ancient towns and villages. On all sides fragments of 
glass, marble, pottery, and inscribed brick strew the 
ground. Owls start from the scanty thickets, and 
jackals skulk through the furrows. For mile after 
mile the track winds around and between low mounds, 
shapeless heaps of brick and rubbish. Babylon is 
tenantless and desolate. The Arabs will not pitch 
their tents there because they say it is haunted by 
evil spirits, which they dread more than they do wild 
animals, which they say also abound there." In fact, 
the prophecies themselves give the best description 
of the present condition of Babylon the great, the 
mighty, the powerful, the golden city. Isaiah says, 
" Wild beasts of the desert shall lie there." ..." I 
will make it a possession for the bittern and pools 
of water, ... a dwelling-place for dragons, an aston- 
ishment and a hissing." Thus are the prophecies 
fulfilled to the letter, yet not until ten or twelve 
centuries after their utterance. 

We have thus shown the specific fulfilment of the 
various prophetical utterances respecting the greatest 
nations that came in contact with the Hebrew nation. 
These prophecies were uttered by many prophets, at 



OVERRULING POWER OF JEHOVAH. 99 

times covering a period of four hundred years. In 
the case of Egypt, so far as they were immediate, 
they were fulfilled by Assyrian, Babylonian, and Per- 
sian kings, at times hundreds of years apart ; the 
remaining predictions are still in force, and in con- 
tinual process. 

Assyria was suddenly blotted out of existence, and 
even the site of its great city Nineveh was forgotten ; 
yet, when found, its appearance was particularly and 
truthfully described by the original prophecies. 

Babylon was not to be destroyed at once. The 
manner of its taking was foretold, and was accom- 
plished, but that did not complete the prophecies. It 
was gradually to be diminished, and we find it took 
twelve hundred years to accomplish the work; and 
the present appearance of ancient Babylon answers 
to the prophetic description. 

Through the Hebrew people the Deity, by miracle 
and by prophecy, was making himself known to man. 
Mankind were reached and influenced by the senses 
only. An event out of the common course, they at 
once accredited to the power of a god. It was the 
direct act of a being higher and greater than a human 
being. This power was used in releasing the Israel- 
ites from the bondage in Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar 
acknowledged the power of the God of the Hebrews 
while they were in Babylonian captivity, and through 
his proclamation other nations were made aware of 
his being and power. 

In the fulfilment of the predictions of the prophets. 



100 ORIGIN OF, HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

tlie foreknowledge and the overruling power of Jelio- 
vah. in the affairs and destiny of nations were made 
known. As these predictions, made in his name, 
were one after another accomplished, the Jews, and 
through them other nations, became aware of the 
greatness and majesty of Jehovah, and looked upon 
him with awe and reverence. 

Among Christians, these evidences of the power 
and majesty of the Deity have been and are received 
with full faith by trusting hearts, and they have 
believed and do believe that God saw and knew 
everything from the beginning, and that he over- 
rules all things for good. 

It is only within the last hundred years that men 
have arisen who have thrown doubt upon the reality 
of miracles and upon the truths of prophecy. 

Because man has so far advanced as to need no 
such supernatural proofs of the existence of God, and 
of his constant oversight and care, they reason that 
such proofs were never necesdary, and therefore could 
not have been, and, forgetting that it is through the 
teachings of the Christ that they have arrived at that 
high state of being, they even belittle or deny him. 

The truth is, it is useless for a disbeliever in the 
supernatural to attempt to understand the Bible. 
The book is a history of the supernatural. There is 
hardly a writer that does not record it. The Hebrew 
nation was born and cradled in the supernatural ; in 
its youth it was led and strengthened by it ; in its 
culmination it was supported by it, and in its death 



THE SUPERNATURAL. 101 

it was accompanied by it. The nation was brouglit 
into being for a special purpose and object; that 
purpose was carried out, that object attained; and, 
when attained, the nation thus supernaturally brought 
into being and supported ceased to exist. 

The Bible contains a record of the instrumentali- 
ties through which God, the spiritual being, commu- 
nicated with man, his child, also spiritual (but in 
this world encased in the natural, and while here sub- 
ject to natural laws), enabling him by reason of his 
spiritual nature to comprehend the communications 
made, and to realize, to a limited degree, his own 
affinity to the Infinite Father. 

These communications, commencing with man in 
his lowest spiritual state, and gradually advancing to 
fuller and greater revelations as he was able to 
receive and comprehend them, were accompanied 
through the whole by supernatural occurrences which 
we call miracles, intended to impress, not only the 
nation that was the recipient and witness of them, 
but, through it, to claim the attention of other nations, 
who, equally ignorant, were thereby made cognizant 
of the greatness and power of Jehovah; until, in 
process of time, mankind were ready to receive the 
full revelation of the being, power, character, pur- 
poses, and requirements of the Deity, as made known 
through Jesus the Christ, the consecrated messenger 
for whose coming and teaching all this preparation 
had been made.^ 

1 In " Aryas, Semites and Jews," these revelations are traced 
and the gradual spiritual progress shown. 



102 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

What are these supernatural exhibitions which we 
call miracles, but exhibitions of the power and maj- 
esty of the Almighty ? 

In the spiritual childhood of man these powers 
were shown in acts of injury and death, even as in 
the natural world the lightning injures and destroys. 
In later years, as man advanced, these same powers 
were exhibited in deeds of benevolence and love. 
To-day they are placed in the hands not of one man 
alone, but in the hands of thousands. Instead of one 
man alleviating the sickness, pain, and distress of the 
hundreds of Judea, thousands, by their increased 
knowledge of chemistry and of the healing art, are 
enabled to control disease, alleviate distress, and by 
their anaesthesia remove pain from millions, all over 
the world. 

It is only within the last hundred years that man 
has advanced sufficiently, spiritually and intellect- 
ually, to receive the mighty powers which God is now 
placing in his hands. The sun paints his pictures, 
and children play with the wonders of photography. 
The lightning, his former dreaded enemy, is now 
bound with metal bands and compelled to do his will. 
The various powers of the universe, before shown in 
the limited way we have mentioned, are now being 
placed in his hands, that they may minister to his 
well-being. 

Man uses these latent powers of the universe to 
create new varieties of fruits, flowers, fowl, and ani- 
mals. The chemistry of the sun, earth, air, and sea; 



MAN'S IMMENSE ADVANCE. 103 

tlie powers of nature, hidden since the creation of the 
world, are now being brought to light and controlled 
by him, and, as he continues to spiritually advance, 
new and still greater powers, now unthought of, will 
doubtless become his allies ; and yet man does not 
realize that he is using some of the tremendous 
powers which in their earlier crude shape he calls 
miracles. 

God places these powers in the hands of thousands, 
and they cease to be miracles ; and yet what does 
man know of electricity ? he has found out a few of 
the laws governing it, and is thus enabled to use it 
for his benefit, and he looks forward to still greater 
power to be obtained in the future ; but even the 
present powers would have been miraculous a few 
hundred years since. 

In the pride of his knowledge, man says, to-day, 
'' There is no such thing as miracle." He scouts the 
healing and beneficent miracles of the Christ, and the/^/ 
injurious and murderous powers of Moses. He can '^ t ; 
look back a few hundred years to the blackness of 
spiritual ignorance then existing, but cannot look 
back three thousand years and imagine the total dark- 
ness of the spiritual sense at that time. G-od places 
his powers in the hands of man at this time with 
lavish freedom, because, in his immense advance, he 
can understand them in part, and use them. But 
three thousand years ago the Deity could only reach 
man through the evidence of his senses, and that not 
in acts of love and beneficence ; they would not have 



104 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

been appreciated. Exhibitions of power and strength, 
the ability to injure and destroy, were the only exhi- 
bitions that would reach, not the hearts, but the fears 
of man. 

Let man gradually work back and see the spirit- 
ually ignorant hordes of Hebrew slaves, and the 
equally ignorant millions of Egypt, and ask himself 
in what other way could the Deity have given to 
these darkened minds evidences of his power that 
would have been understood. Evidences of injurious 
and destructive powers were the only means by 
which to reach these feeble and darkened minds. 
By denying the truth of these miracles, men blunt 
their own powers of perception, and blindly disown 
the Bible, because it contains the records of these 
events. 

RADICAL VIEWS OF THE BIBLE. 

While there are various and conflicting views of 
the Bible, there are two that, though widely apart, 
are equally destructive to the calm and thoughtful 
examination of its contents. 

The first is called a "scientific criticism of the 
Scriptures." This destroys all belief in the Bible, 
either as the result of inspiration or as the work of 
man. The writers throughout are charged with de- 
ception and lying, and a work purporting to contain 
revelations from Grod is denounced as a tissue of 
falsehoods. 

The other claims for the Bible, — not that it con- 



SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM. 105 

tains revelations from tlie Deity, — but tliat it is the 
actual ^' word of God ; " that the men who wrote it 
were the mechanical instruments through whom God 
communicated with man ; that the book is entire and 
complete, and as the word of God must be believed 
in its entirety without comment or distrust, notwith- 
standing its many mistakes and contradictions, its 
multiple pictures of the Deity, and its contrary and 
incongruous teachings. 

While scientific criticism fosters disbelief in the 
Bible, the dogma of its verbal inspiration is a source 
of disbelief in God, and in religion as now generally 
taught. 

SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM. 

Of late years, critical investigations of the Bible 
by Ewald, Colenso, Kuenen, Hooykaas, and other 
scholars, have led to results startling in their charac- 
ter, and requiring careful consideration. These, with 
names more familiar, such as Dean Stanley, Matthew 
Arnold, Eenan, Strauss, Neander, and many other 
writers, are referred to as authorities consulted, in a 
work called "The Bible of To-day, by John W. Chad- 
wick, Minister of the Second Unitarian Church in 
Brooklyn, N. Y.^' This work claims to give "the 
principal results of the best historical and scientific 
criticism of the separate books of the Bible. They 
are (says the author), almost without exception, those 
which have been reached by many scholars of unim- 
peachable orthodoxy." 



106 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

In a study of the Bible, a work of this character, 
claiming to represent the latest results of scientific 
criticism by scholars of unimpeachable orthodoxy, 
cannot be passed by without notice and examination. 

Mr. Chadwick says, " Here in America, so far as I 
can judge, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch 
is commonly assumed in all the Evangelical churches. 
A history purporting to begin with the beginning of 
the world, 4004 B.C., and to end in 1451 B.C., shortly 
after the death of Moses, whose death it piously re- 
cords. All this is supposed to have been written by 
the hand of Moses, and to be a faithful and consist- 
ent account of things which really happened, and 
words which were really spoken by the persons or the 
deity to whom they are ascribed. If it were so, we 
should still have a history written at a distance, in 
many instances, of from five to five-and-twenty hundred 
years from the events recorded. To such a history, a 
theory of supernatural inspiration is absolutely neces- 
sary, if it is going to have any authority whatever. 
But the theory of supernatural inspiration, as well as 
the theory of Mosaic authorship, was never started 
till ten or a dozen centuries after the death of Moses. 
The theory of Mosaic authorship was part of a gen- 
eral system which, just before the beginning of the 
Christian era, ascribed the Old Testament books to 
those persons who figured in them most conspicu- 
ously ; for example, the book of Joshua to Joshua, 
the books of Sa^muel to Samuel. But this conclusion 
of the Talmudists, ever the most uncritical of men, 



THE BOOK OF COVENANTS. 107 

was without any critical justification wliatever. There 
is not a sign that the book of Joshua was written by 
Joshua, or the books of Samuel by Samuel, or the 
five books of the Pentateuch by Moses." "So far 
was the composition of the Pentateuch from being 
contemporaneous with even the latest events which it 
narrates, that the oldest fragment of any size which 
it contains dates from the ninth century B.C. . . , J 
The gap between this fragment and the patriarchal 
times is about a thousand years. This fragment, 
which the critics have agreed to call the Book of Cove- 
nants, extends from Exodus xxi. to xxiii. 19. The 
next considerable portion of the Pentateuch was prob- 
ably written about B.C. 750, a dozen centuries and 
more from the events to which it gives most atten- 
tion. These are the events of patriarchal times. In 
this document appear the patriarchal stories in their 
most charming form. . . . The Book of Covenants is 
included in this document, and also (according to some 
critics) another very considerable one is amalgamated 
with it, the author of which is sometimes called the 
older Elohist, because he uses the word Elohim for 
God. . . . Here, then, we have already three consider- 
able documents included in the Pentateuch, but as yet 
it had not attained to half its present bulk. The next 
great addition was made in the time of King Josiah. 
This was the book of Deuteronomy. It was made 
public in 621 B.C., and had been written just before, 
six hundred and fifty years after the death of 
Moses. Soon after, it was incorporated with those 



108 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

parts of the Pentateuch, which had been previously 
written." 

This book is "much more of a manufacture than 
any previous portion of the Pentateuch. Here cal- 
culation takes the place of spontaneity. . . . The 
Deuteronomist went about deliberately to invent a 
great historic fiction. He knew what he wanted ; 
namely, to abolish all idolatrous worship of Yahweh 
(Jehovah), all worship of all other gods, a.nd, as a 
means to these ends, to confine the worship of 
Yahweh (Jehovah) to Jerusalem. . . . Choosing Moses 
as his mouthpiece, he represents him as calling the 
people together in the fortieth year of their wander- 
ings in the wilderness, to refresh their memory of 
the Law which had been previously revealed to them, 
sternly commanding them to serve no other god but 
Yahweh (Jehovah)." 

"The Deuteronomist does not by any means con- 
fine himself to the outward forms and ceremonies of 
religion. His book abounds in precepts which are 
political aud civil and domestic in their character, 
and many of these are very noteworthy for their 
moral excellence. A spirit of equity and clemency 
in some of his social regulations allies them to the 
teachings of Jesus more closely than any other 
portion of the Pentateuch." 

"And still the Pentateuch awaited an immense 
accession to its priestly elements, an immense addi- 
tion to its bulk." This was the "Book of Origins," 
which Ewald says " dates from the time of Solomon." 



THE BOOK OF ORIGINS. 109 

This theory is not satisfactory to our author, who 
instead accepts the theory of Kuenen, that the Book 
of Origins dates from the fifth century B.C. 

" This Book of Origins," he says, " as it now exists, 
begins with the first line of Genesis, and runs in and 
out through all the other documents, not meddling 
much with Deuteronomy, up to the end of Joshua. 
It contains the first account of the creation and 
Adam's family register, an account of the Flood and 
Noah's family register. It deals with the Patriarchs 
much more summarily than do the earlier documents. 
In fact, until the time of Moses the portions of this 
book are only introductory to the writer's special 
theme, which is the publication of the Levitical Law. 
The book of Leviticus is almost entirely his, and the 
larger part of Numbers. Here, in with parts of 
Exodus, we have a sacerdotal code, which marks an 
immense advance in priestly notions and pretensions 
on the book of Deuteronomy. Whenever it is neces- 
sary to his purpose, the writer freely recasts the 
history of the Mosaic and pre-Mosaic times." This 
"Book of Origins, already incorporated with the 
remainder of the Pentateuch, . . . was promulgated 
by Ezra and Nehemiah, at Jerusalem, 445 B.C. Who 
had done this work of incorporation we do not know ; 
. . . not Jerusalem, but Babylon, it is most likely, 
was the scene of this development. Not Sinai and 
the wilderness, but Babylon and Jerusalem, witnessed 
the promulgation of the Levitical Law. Its priest 
was Ezra, and not Aaron." 



110 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

" We have here a book (the Pentateuch) made up 
of fragments arbitrarily forced together, which frag- 
ments made their appearance all the way alpng from 
900 to 450 B.C. . . . There was a great stock of oral 
traditions to draw upon, and also various books, the 
names of which, in a few cases, have been preserved 
to us, as, for example, the book of Jasher, and the 
book of the Wars of Jehovah. But even the earliest 
of these was antedated a long time by the events 
recorded, and they are only quoted in the most frag- 
mentary manner." 

Of the book of Joshua he says, " We have reason 
to believe that the same hands that shaped the prin- 
cipal documents of the Pentateuch shaped the two 
principal fragments of the book of Joshua. These 
are, first, chapters i. to xiii. ; second, chapters xiv. to 
xxiv. The book is naturally divided into these two 
sections. The first recites the story of Joshua's con- 
quest of Canaan ; the second, his division of the land 
among the tribes. The first is mainly from the 
Deuteronomist, the second is mainly by the ' author 
of the Book of Origins ; ' and the date of the book 
would be, say, ^by the Deuteronomist about 600 B.C., 
and by the author of Origins, after the captivity, 
about 450 B.C.' '' 

'^In a book written so long after the events which it 
records, ... we should not expect to find accurate 
history. But it may be said that in our day the best 
histories are the latest ; for example, Green's History 
of the English People, and Freeman's History of the 



THE DEUTERONOMIST, 111 

Norman Conquest. True enough, but the superior 
value of these histories is based upon their critical 
use of contemporary documents. But the authors of 
Joshua had, in the first place, no contemporary docu- 
ments that came within centuries of the events. . . . 
They were not in search of truth, their writings were 
tendency writings : that is, they were written to 
carry a point." The Deuteronomist "wanted the 
sanction of antiquity for his passionate exclusive- 
ness, and for his centralized worship at Jerusalem." 
The author of Origins " wanted the sanction of antiq- 
uity for his Levitical enthusiasm." 

"Judges is a wonderful treasury of almost contem- 
porary traditions of the period between the conquest 
and the time of David, from about 1280 to 1050 B.C. 
or thereabout. According to Joshua, the tribes acted 
in perfect unity, subjugated Canaan entirely in one 
year, and divided its territory among the tribes. As 
there was never any such conquest as that of Joshua, 
recorded in the first of the thirteenth chapters, so was 
there never any such division of the territory as that 
of Joshua, recorded in the fourteenth to the twenty- 
seventh chapters." 

"Judges is a tendency writing. It has a thesis to 
maintain, viz., that faithfulness to Jehovah is the 
only means of national prosperity; and was edited 
by one of the Prophets. The traditions embedded 
in his argument sufficiently confute his darling theo- 
ries. His time was certainly no earlier than the 
seventh century B.C." 



112 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

Rutli is also claimed as a "tendency writing, and 
dates about 400 B.C.'' 

Of the first and second books of Samuel our author 
says, " It is not likely that these books attained their 
present form till just before or soon after the begin- 
ning of the captivity. The object of the writer was 
to glorify Samuel and David at the expense of Saul. 
. c . The writer made use of various legends, written 
and oral, and joined them together in a very crude 
and blundering fashion." 

Next, '^we have the two books of Kings. The 
books are written with a purpose, to show that only 
in the faithful service of Jehovah is there safety and 
success for kings and people. The suffering of Israel 
and Judah are the merited punishments of their 
idolatry and disobedience. Probably the work was 
finished about 562 B.C., and was written in Babylon, 
by one who was a captive there. . . . He made use 
of many written sources," and "sometimes stands 
corrected by the narratives which he incorporates 
into his own. But, with the exception of the inci- 
dental history embodied in the Prophets, he is our 
only historian of Israel, for five hundred years, who 
is at all trustworthy. With the books of Kings 
ended the treatment of history from a prophetic 
standpoint." 

" The books of Chronicles go over the same ground, 
but they pervert our knowledge more than they in- 
crease it." They "were written about 300 B.C., and 
are a reconstruction of the entire history of Israel, 



MANASSEH AND HIS CAPTIVITY, 113 

in order to compel the sanction of that history for 
that scheme of priestly worship which had been 
developed in Babylon and set up in Jerusalem by 
Ezra and Nehemiah. . . . Whatever his materials, 
they were all fluid in the heat of his Levitic zeal, 
and all received the impress of his cherished theory, 
that the acceptable worship of Jehovah consisted in 
the minute observance of a ceremonial and sacrificial 
system of religion centralized in the one temple at 
Jerusalem. . . . The persistent idolatry of the nation 
is scarcely mentioned, except when it is needed as a 
background to bring out the virtue of the kings who 
labored to suppress it. . . . David and Solomon are 
idealized; the credit of designing the temple and 
the organization of the temple service is given to 
David. . . . ISTothing remains for Solomon but to 
carry out the plans of David. . . . The fondness of 
Solomon for other forms of worship is passed over 
lightly, or his wives are charged with causing his 
defection." . . . "Manasseh, whose reign lasted the 
longest of any king of Judah, and the most pros- 
perous and peaceful, offered a very knotty problem 
to the Chronicler, who, with Ezekiel, believes that 
national prosperity depended on the faithful service 
of Jehovah, for Manasseh fostered all the abomina- 
tions of the Canaanites . . . and so Manasseh is made 
to suffer captivity, and to repent in dust and ashes 
for his wickedness, . . . but for neither repentance 
nor captivity is there any warrant in the earlier and 
more truthful histories. This story is, perhaps, the 



114 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

earliest prototype of a numerous class of famous 
recantations, of which. Voltaire's and Thomas Paine's 
are modern illustrations, and equally without a parti- 
cle of evidence." ^ 

Of the other books of the Old Testament, our 
author writes in much the same manner. They were 
books written to serve a purpose. Of the predictions 
contained in the prophetical books (he says), " some 
of the more general were fulfilled, the most were 
doomed to utter disappointment." ^ 

He sums up the political history of the Hebrews 

1 Relative to this statement of our author regarding Manasseh, 
among the Assyrian archives, as translated hy George Smith, 
Esq., of the British Museum, is the following. About 680 B.C., 
Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, " marched against Sidon, which he 
besieged, captured, and destroyed." At this time the whole of 
Palestine and the surrounding places submitted to Esarhaddon, 
who gives a list of the kings, and among them is Manasseh, 
king of Judah. Some years after, he made an expedition against 
Judah ; a portion of the record is defaced, but this statement re- 
mains, " Manasseh, king of Judah, submitted to Esarhaddon;" 
"he carried large numbers of Israelites away captive, and re- 
placed them by colonies of Babylonians, and he bound Manasseh, 
king of Judah, and brought him to Babylon." There is no record 
of his return, which is stated in the Bible to have been the fact. 
Kev. A. H. Sayce, the editor of " Smith's History of Babylonia," in 
a footnote, says, " It was while Esarhaddon was holding his court 
at Babylon, that Manasseh of Judah was brought there captive. 
. . . The character and rule of Esarhaddon seem to have been 
mild, and the release of Manasseh from captivity is paralleled by 
other similar acts of clemency on his part." 

2 In a previous chapter we have carefully examined the proph- 
ecies against Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, and have obtained 
from Babylonian and Assyrian cylinders, as translated by Profes- 
sors Smith, Sayce, and others, and from ancient and modern his- 
tory, facts showing their complete fulfilment, or that they are 
still active and in process of being fulfilled. 



JOSEPH IN EGYPT, 115 

as follows : " In all strictness this does not begin 
until the exodus from Egypt in 1320 B.C., and there 
are some things antecedent to the exodus which we 
can dimly fashion. For centuries before the exodus 
— such would appear to be the import of the patri- 
archal stories — Semitic hordes from beyond the 
Euphrates were pushing down into Arabia, Palestine, 
and Egypt. Sometimes the races already in posses- 
sion forced them back. The journey of Abraham 
was most likely the emigration of a tribe ; its start- 
ing-point, Ur of the Chaldees, being about one hun- 
dred and fifty miles due south of modern Erzerum, 
on the south side of the Taurus.- The journey of 
Jacob back into Haran was a great backward move- 
ment of the swaying mass. His subsequent return 
to Canaan, another great migration." 

"Joseph in Egypt possibly represents the first 
wave of migration into Egypt, followed ere long by 
that of kindred tribes, but these Hebrews were not 
the first Semitic tribes to go down, they were the last. 
About 2100 B.C., Lower Egypt was conquered by a 
Semitic race, which ruled over it till 1580 B.C., when 

1 Recent explorations show that our author is probably mis- 
taken as to the situation of " Ur " of the Chaldees, which was a 
large and important city at the time of Abram, the capital of 
Southern Babylonia, now "represented by the mounds of 
'Mugheir,' about six miles from the Euphrates, on its western 
bank, about latitude 31°. It was probably not far from the old 
mouth of the Euphrates," " The city of Ur was devoted to the 
worship of the moon god, called in early times Ur, and the place 
itself appears to have been named, after that divinity, the city of 
Ur." 



116 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

it was driven out by the native Egyptians, who had 
maintained themselves in Upper Egypt. The Hebrews 
were a later wave of immigration, and they remained 
in Egypt after the shepherd kings (of whom Joseph's 
Pharaoh was one) had gone. ... A king arose who 
knew not Joseph. In other words, the native Egyp- 
tians had reconquered Lower Egypt. So long as the 
Israelites could be kept contented, they made a living 
wall between the banished Hyksos and the Egyptians. 
But they at last grew restless under the oppression 
of the great Rameses II., and under his son Menephta 
(Amenophis) they rebelled, and, aided by the Hyksos, 
they broke away from their allegiance, and resumed 
their old nomadic life. Such was the exodus, the 
Bible date of which is 1491. Instead of this date, 
write 1320 B.C., as the best approximation we can 
make by carefully comparing the Pentateuch and 
Manetho (an Egyptian historian) and the monu- 
ments." 

" The towering personality of Moses was equal to 
the task of holding them together in the act of their 
rebellion and deliverance, but after that there was 
little united action. The different tribes went each 
its way to plant and graze. . . . Some of them con- 
quered the district east of the Jordan, with the help 
of the Moabites. Others, under Joshua, with the 
help of the Midianites and Edomites, pushed their 
way into Canaan about forty years after the exodus, 
and there they remained ignorant tribes, with little 
civilization or religion, among the more civilized 
nations around them." 



SAUL AND DAVID. 117 

" To Saul belongs the glory of arousing the senti- 
ment of nationality and fusing the discordant tribal 
elements into a political unit. His reign was short, 
but did him no dishonor. '^ 

David was a fierce soldier. " He had none of SauPs 
scruples about slaughtering the Canaanites. He was 
every inch a king, and consolidated the nation. He 
subdued its enemies, and utilized the zeal alike of 
priests and prophets." 

It is hardly necessary for us to follow this author 
any further. The extracts from his book which we 
have given reveal the character and animus of the 
work, and they show his utter disbelief in the Bible 
either as a historical or religious book. 

Now let us see what this writer claims. 

All the books forming the Pentateuch were manu- 
factured. 

The oldest portion of the Old Testament, the " Book 
of Covenants," was written about the ninth century 
before Christ. 

The patriarchal stories, about B.C. 750. 

The book of Deuteronomy, "a deliberate inven- 
tion," "a great historic fiction," was written in the 
time of King Josiah, and made public B.C. 621. 

The " Book of Origins," " containing what is now 
scattered through Genesis, Exodus, the greater part of 
Numbers and Leviticus, was written about B.C. 450, 
by some one unknown, to give the sanction of an- 
tiquity to the Levitical laws, and was promulgated by 
Ezra and Nehemiah." 



118 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES, 

'' The same hands wrote the history of the division 
of the landj fourteenth to twenty-fourth chapters of 
Joshua.'^ 

" The history of the conquest in the first thirteen 
chapters was written by the Deuteronomist." " Both 
of these authors wrote for a purpose, and each falsi- 
fied history to carry out his object." 

The author of Judges has a thesis to maintain, 
and "it was written for a purpose by one of the 
prophets." 

Euth, the same. 

The books of Samuel are also false, and were 
written for an object during the captivity in Babylon. 

The books of the Kings, the same. 

The books of Chronicles, worse than all. They 
were written about B.C. 300. " The materials of the 
author were all fluid in the heat of his Levitical zeal, 
and all received the impress of his cherished theory." 

All these books, our author says, are false, written 
by men who, impelled by the desire to advance their 
own views, falsified the truths of history and the 
events of their own time, and manufactured these 
various books, skilfully interweaving a few old tales 
and traditions. 

According to this writer, Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob are myths ; their stories, specimens of the 
novelist's art; or, if they ever existed, they were 
names of nomadic migratory hordes. The slavery of 
the Israelites is a fiction. The contest between Jeho- 
vah and the Egyptian gods, a myth. In fact, there 



ABRAHAAI, ISAAC, AND JACOB. 119 

was no Jehovah, except as created by the novelist 
who composed the story. There was no river of blood, 
no frogs, flies, or locusts ; no murrain on cattle ; no 
boils ; no hail and fire ; no darkness, nor death of the 
first-born ; no passing over of the angel of death ; no 
passover instituted until long years afterward; no 
crossing of the Eed Sea nor destruction of Pharaoh's 
hosts ; no Sinai, no earthquakes, clouds, or trumpets ; 
no delivery of the law ; no covenant ; no worship ; 
no pillar of cloud and fire ; no forty years in the 
wilderness ; no conquest of Canaan. These are all 
merely the dramatic characters and incidents of the 
fiction. 

There were no prophets except those who prophesy 
in general terms ; or, where the predictions were 
specific and particular, they were never fulfilled. 

In fact, according to Mr. Chadwick, the Hebrew 
Scriptures are a tissue of falsehoods from begin- 
ning to end, and every writer thereof a deliberate 
falsifier. 

In the Pentateuch we have the only account in the 
world of a revelation made to and a contract or cove- 
nant made with man by the Deity until the time of 
Christ. In these books, we trace the incipient steps 
in the revelation to and covenants made with Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob; then the greater revelation 
and covenant made through Moses with the Hebrews. 
With these revelations is the promise that the seed 
of Abraham shall become a great nation, and shall 



120 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

inlierit tlie land pointed out to him. This promise is 
fulfilled by their servitude to the Egj^ptians. Their 
delivery from bondage by means of miracles of a 
nature before unknown ; their departure from Egypt ; 
the many and unexampled miracles of the journey; 
the delivery of the law; the covenant with Jeho- 
vah ; the forty years' instruction ; the final entrance 
into, the conquering, and the taking possession of 
this land; all these things are accomplished with 
the aid of Jehovah, by ways perfectly adapted to 
the end desired, and thoroughly unique in the means 
taken to that end. Yet we are asked to believe that 
there is not a particle of truth in these statements, 
that several hundred years after the events described 
are said to have taken place, some unknown writers 
of the Hebrews, with imaginations greater far than 
any that have appeared before or since, and writing 
at periods from two hundred and fifty to five hundred 
years apart, and from four hundred to one thousand 
years after the events related, created this whole 
story. The allegories of Genesis ; the stories of the 
patriarchs' lives ; their communion with God ; the 
promises made to them ; their various adventures 
until their descendants are brought into Egypt, and 
there increase to a great nation ; the life and charac- 
ter of Moses, and the unique miracles, both in Egypt 
and Sinai, are the work of these writers. They also 
created the being and character of Jehovah, no such 
god having been found in the records of any other 
nation. Without correspondence or unity of interest, 



JEHOVAH. 121 

they unitedly carry this nation, the creature of their 
separate brains, through all these strange vicissitudes, 
(experiences entirely unknown to any other nation or 
people), and bring it by these unexampled means to 
its haven of rest. 

These fictions, we are told, were discovered and 
adopted by Ezra and ISTehemiah, and by them were 
applied and fitted on to the then existing Hebrew 
nation ; such previous traditions and writings as they 
had being of course altered to agree with it ; thus 
giving us a book thoroughly homogeneous in its 
character, similar ideas of Jehovah being presented 
by all its various writers ; the teachings of Moses 
continually referred to as if true ; the covenant with 
Jehovah repeatedly re-adopted, and the fiction estab- 
lished by frequent references to the incidents of 
their invented history. And this fabrication is so 
natural as to have imposed upon the Jews of a 
later time, who, even unto this day, believe in its 
truth. It was also believed in by Christ and his 
apostles, and by Christians until now. What mira- 
cles are these, greater far than any mentioned in 
the Bible, or ever before heard of in history or 
fiction ! 

We are asked to believe that all the books of the 
Hebrew scriptures are figments of the imagination, 
written by prophet, priest, and scribe, for the pur- 
pose of each carrying out his own plans and ideas, 
yet all agreeing in the delineation of the great char- 
acters and events of their nation, which were, not- 



122 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

withstanding, entirely fictitious. Can such, a thing 
be possible ? Yet this is the ground taken by this 
writer, this is the result of his statements. Can we 
believe this ? Is it not more impossible than the 
wildest tale of Munchausen ? Does it not require 
more credulity than " The Thousand and One Tales " ? 

Here is a writer who freely charges the Old Testa- 
ment authors with tendency writing, with falsifying 
the truths of history and the events of their own 
times, with inventing stories and incidents with the 
novelist's art, all to serve and carry out their own 
private views and purposes. 

Can there be a more thorough specimen of such 
tendency writing than the book we have been exam- 
ining, as shown in its vain endeavor to dethrone 
Jehovah, in its ability to stumble over and not see the 
hundreds of miracles that obstruct its path, and in 
its blind denial of the fulfilment of prophecy ? 

Any one would suppose that the certainty with 
which the author makes his statements, and an- 
nounces the dates at which the several books were 
written, was the result of combined scientific exami- 
nation and criticism ; but what do we find ? Let us 
compare the results arrived at by Mr. Chadwick and 
several of the prominent German critics regarding the 
Pentateuch. 

BOOK OF COVENANTS. 



CHADWICK. 


EWALD. 


COLENSO. 


KUENEN. 


B.C. 900. 


B.C. 1095. 


Myth. 


B.C. 1320. 


B.C. 750. 









VERBAL INSPIRATION. 123 

BOOK OF ORIGINS. 
CHAD WICK. EWALD. COLENSO. KUEJ^EN. 

B.C. 445. B.C. 1075. B.C. 1095. B.C. 800. 

B.C. 445. 

DEUTERONOMY. 

B.C. 621. B.C. 621. Legendary. B.C. 621. 

This is the result of Scientific Criticism. What a 
wonderful science ! 

VERBAL INSPIRATION. 

The second radical view of the Bible is that of 
verbal inspiration. According to Kitto's "Encyclo- 
paedia of Biblical Literature/*' an accepted exponent 
of Trinitarian beliefs, the dogma of the inspiration of 
the Scriptures rests upon the assertion that "the 
books of which it is composed are of divine author- 
ity; that they are entire, incorrupt, complete," and 
that " this divine authorship can be proved." 

In attempting to sustain this assertion, while ac- 
knowledging that doubts have arisen respecting the 
authorship of the Pentateuch, — several Trinitarian 
authorities having stated that its author is unknown, 
— Kitto finally, as the result of his study, ascribes 
it to Moses. 

He also considers it "highly probable that the 
whole book of Joshua, up to the twenty-eighth verse 
of the last chapter, was composed by Joshua." Later 
Trinitarian authority pronounces the author of Joshua 
unknown. 

Kitto says the author of Judges is unknown. Ruth 
also unknown. First and second books of Samuel 



124 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

unknown, but thinks they were written by Samuel, 
Nathan, and Gad. First and second books of Kings 
is a compilation, the author unknown, but Jewish tra- 
dition makes Jeremiah the author. First and second 
books of Chronicles unknown, but are ascribed to 
Ezra and finished by Daniel. Book of Job unknown. 
Psalms of David unknown ; a portion were completed 
during the reign of Hezekiah, others in the reign of 
Manasseh, Nehemiah, and even to the date of the 
Maccabees. Ecclesiastes unknown. The remaining 
books of the Hebrew Scriptures are generally as- 
cribed to the persons whose name they bear, but 
without authority or proof. 

The Bible date of Malachi is about 400 B.C. The 
intervening period to the time of the Christ is par- 
tially covered by apocryphal books, bringing the 
biblical history down to about B.C. 160. 

Thus we find, by Trinitarian authority, that there 
is a great uncertainty regarding the authorship of the 
principal books comprising the Old Testament. 

THE CHKONOLOGY OF THE HEBREW SCRIPTUBES 

is so generally acknowledged to be unreliable that it 
is hardly necessary to more than mention the fact 
that between Usher's (the Bible chronology) and the 
Septuagint there is a difference of 1504 years. 

THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE. 

Kitto defines the Canon to be "the authoritative 
standard of religion and morals, composed of those 



THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE. 125 

writings which have been given for this purpose by 
God to men." He says, in order to establish the 
canon of Scripture it is necessary to she \V, — 

First, "that all the books of which it is composed 
are of divine authority." 

Second, " that they are entire and incorrupt." 

Third, "that, having them, it is complete without 
any addition from any other source ; " and 

Fourth, "that it comprises the whole of those 
books for which divine authority can be proved." 

"It is obvious," he says, "that if any of these 
four particulars be not true. Scripture cannot be the 
sole and supreme standard of religious truth and 
duty." 

In support of the first of the above requirements, 
"we want to know," he says, 

First, "that these books were really written by 
the persons whose names they bear." 

Second, "we want to be satisfied that these per- 
sons were commonly reputed and held by their con- 
temporaries to be assisted by the Divine Spirit in what 
they wrote." 

Third, "we want to be sure that care was taken 
by those to whom their writings were first addressed, 
that they should be preserved entire and incorrupt j " 
and 

Fourth, "we want to see . . . that their authors 
really assumed to be under the Divine direction in 
what they wrote." 

With these requirements before us, let us see the 



126 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

result of our examination of the Hebrew scriptures. 
In support of these positions, as applied to the 
Pentateuch, Kitto quotes Deut. xxxi. 9, 26, to which 
we have added the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth 
verses. "And Moses wrote this law, and delivered 
it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, which bare 
the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto all 
the elders of Israel. . . . And it came to pass, when 
Moses had made an end of writing the words of this 
law in a book until they were finished, that Moses 
commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the 
covenant of the Lord, saying. Take this book of the 
law and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant 
of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a 
witness against thee." 

It is evident that Genesis, one of the five books of 
the Pentateuch, is no part of the " Book of the Law." 
That probably consisted of the laws now contained 
in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, with the law and the 
covenant, and its record of blessings and cursings 
recorded by Moses in Deuteronomy, together with 
the renewed covenant made through Joshua with the 
Israelites, as recorded in the twenty-fourth chapter 
of Joshua, which was added thereto. 

As applied to Joshua, Kitto quotes Josh. xxiv. 2Q, 
" And Joshua wrote the words in the book of the law 
of God." 

The context here shows that this writing referred 
to the covenant with Jehovah, which the Hebrews 
had at this time renewed. 



THE BOOK OF THE LAW, 127 

Kitto declares the authors of Judges, Euth, Job, 
and Ecclesiastes unknown. 

Of the first and second books of Samuel, first and 
second books of Kings, first and second books of 
Chronicles, the authors are unknown. The author- 
ship of many of the later books of the Hebrew 
scriptures is disputed, but thev are of less conse- 
quence than those mentioned. 

On applying these tests we find not one of the 
ancient books of the Hebrew scriptures, outside of 
the prophetical writings, can sustain them, except 
portions of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuter- 
onomy. Kitto claims it for the Pentateuch and 
Joshua, but, as is shown, with only partial effect, and 
other Trinitarian writers pronounce the authors of 
Genesis and Joshua " unknown." 

There is no proof that 

First, "all the books of which it (the Old Testa- 
ment) is composed were written by divine authority.'^ 

Second, " that they are entire and incorrupt." 

Third, "that it (the Canon) is complete without 
any addition." 

Fourth, "that divine authority can be proved for 
any of these books." 

There is no proof 

First, " that they were really written by the per- 
sons whose names they bear." 

Second, that the authors "were assisted by the 
Divine Spirit." 

Third, " that the books were preserved entire and 
uncorrupt ; " or 



128 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

Fourth, that '^tlieir authors assumed to be under 
Divine direction in what they wrote." 

Moses was ordered to put down certain things in a 
bookj and the prophets alone in the Hebrew scrip- 
tures claim to speak by divine authority and to have 
been divinely inspired. 

Thus we find the authorship of most of the ancient 
books forming the Hebrew scriptures doubtful or 
unknown, its chronology generally rejected, and the 
claim of verbal inspiration unsupported, and in fact 
disproved, by the very requirements laid down for its 
establishment, consequently the portion of the Bible 
known as the Old Testament cannot be "the author- 
itative standard of religion and morals " that it has 
been claimed to be. It cannot "be the sole and 
supreme standard of religious truth and duty." In 
fact, in the teachings of Moses, it inculcates but a 
very low standard of religion or morals. 

It certainly is not the word of God, nor was it 
written by inspiration of God, yet it contains inspired 
utterances, and records acts and deeds also inspired. 
Its statements are undoubtedly founded on fact and 
mainly correct. In the coincidence of ideas, it bears 
evidence of the authenticity of its sources and the 
honesty of its purpose. Above all, it contains the 
records of revelations made by the Deity to man, and 
of covenants made by God with man ; and these reve- 
lations give to it a character and value possessed by 
no other book except the Christian scriptures. 

The Bible itself makes no claim to verbal or other 



THE HEBREW COVENANT. 129 

inspiration ; the prophets speak by the inspiration of 
Jehovah ; Moses refers his power to Jehovah, and 
claims to have received communications from him. 

The only claim made by the book itself is in its 
titles, the "Old Testament/- the "New Testament." 
Testament means the will or purpose of the Deity as 
shown in the Old Covenant and in the ]N"ew Covenant. 
A covenant, or contract, is a mutual agreement made 
between two or more parties. 

The old covenant, under which the Hebrews acted, 
was made between Jehovah, on the one side, and the 
Hebrew people, acting through Moses as their agent, 
on the other. 

The people, on their part, agreed to honor and 
serve Jehovah as their God, and to worship no other 
god; they bound themselves and their children to 
the faithful performance of these obligations under 
penalties of the curses of the covenant. 

" Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a 
curse : a blessing if ye obey the commandments of 
the Lord your God, which I command you this day ; 
and a curse if ye will not obey the commandments of 
the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way 
which I command you this day, to go after other 
gods which ye have not known." 

The agreement on the part of Jehovah was that 
he would be the tutelary or national God of the 
Hebrews ; he would advance their interests, and 
bless them with the blessings of the covenant as 
long as they continued faithfully to worship and 



130 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

serve him. If they failed in their allegiance to him, 
he would punish them by sending on them the curses 
of the same covenant. This covenant was sealed 
with all due formalities by the contracting parties. 
It was a contract with the Hebrews, a people distinct 
and separate from all other people, and binding on 
them alone. It was made with them as against all 
nations then existing, and it was repeatedly renewed 
and indorsed by the Hebrews, thus evidencing the 
truth of the original records, and witnessing to the 
binding force of the covenant. 

This covenant is entirely earthly ; its blessings are 
earthly peace, happiness, riches, health, plenty, and 
prosperity, and its curses are also earthly trouble, 
poverty, sickness, famine, adversity, war, and cap- 
tivity. 

If we read the Hebrew scriptures in this light, we 
shall find the constant and exact fulfilment of the 
promises and threats of the covenant. 

Christians have erred in placing the Hebrew scrip- 
tures on a plane of equality with the Christian scrip- 
tures. The coming of Christ and the promulgation 
of the new covenant open to all mankind, closed and 
ended the old and partial covenant made with one 
nation. Christ says, "The law and the prophets 
were until John, since that time the kingdom of God 
is preached." 

The covenant of the law ceased with the advent 
of the Christ, and the requirements of the Jewish 
religion actually ended in the downfall of the Jewish 



THE GREAT EVANGEL. 131 

nation. All its forms, ceremonies, and sacrificial 
system are gone ; it was a system established in an 
early period of the world's history, with an ignorant 
nation, and suited to their capabilities and knowl- 
edge ; it was established to introduce to and keep 
alive in the world a knowledge of God, and that 
purpose was accomplished. 

The Jews cannot now fulfil its requirements: the 
Jehovah of the Jews is no more ; he has gone forever, 
has ceased to exist, and God, our heavenly Father, is 
all in all. 

The principal value of the Old Testament to the 
Christian, other than its literary character, its beau- 
tiful religious imagery, and its many noble utter- 
ances, is that therein we have a record of the first 
revelations from God, and the first contracts entered 
into between God and man. Here we have the 
incipient steps towards the revelation of that great 
evangel which commenced in Abram and continued 
in Moses and the prophets, culminated in Jesus the 
Christ, which gives to the Bible pre-eminence over all 
scriptures of all times and all nations. 

The Bible is the only book which claims to contain 
a revelation direct from the Deity. In this the Bible 
is unique, and in this only can a claim be made, not 
of verbal inspiration, but of divine revelation. All 
others contain the religious utterances of men only, 
some evidently from divine sources, the origin of 
which are now unknown, notably the Hindu and 
Persian ancient religious writings or scriptures, which 



132 ORIGIN OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES. 

are full of faith and trust in God, in his love and care, 
and in immortality ; and they teach purity of thought 
and life. 

The revelation to and covenant with Abram was 
personal, not national. It was crude, initiatory, 
requiring faith and obedience to the light given 
him, and was accepted by him in the rite of cir- 
cumcision. The larger revelation made through 
Moses to the Hebrews was national, made to that 
people alone. It was also accompanied by a covenant 
which was accepted and ratified by that nation, and 
was on many occasions renewed. It has not, nor 
ever had, the slightest claim on any other people, 
nation, or tongue. 

The final and full revelation made through Jesus 
the Christ to all mankind is also accompanied by a 
covenant already signed on the part of God, which is 
open to all of every tongue and nation for their 
acceptance or rejection. 



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CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES 
Being the Adventures of a Naturalist Bird-hunting in the West-India Islands. 

By Fred A. Ober. New edition. With maps and illustrations. $1.50. ^ 

" During two years he visited mountains, forests, and people, that few, if 
mny, tourists had ever reached before. He carried his camera with him, and 
photographed from nature the scenes by which the book is illustrated." — 
Louisville Courier-Journal. 
ENGLAND FROM A BACK WINDOW; With Views of 

Scotland and Ireland 
By J. M. Bailey, the " * Danbury News' Man." i2mo. $1.00. 

" The peculiar humor of this writer is well known. The British Isles haro 
never before been looked at in just the same way, — at least, not by any on» 
who has notified us of the Izct. Mr. Bailey's travels possess, accordingly, a 
value of their own for the reader, no matter how many previous records of 
journeys in the mother eountry he may have read." — Rochester Express. 

fold by all booksellers, and sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of pn'M 

LEE AND SHEFAED Publishers Boston 



as 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 327 420 2 



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